Two Studies of Cows

Author: Gert Jan van der Sman

When the opportunity arose, standing and lying cattle were a subject of study by established sixteenth-century artists like Polidoro da Caravaggio (c.1500-1543) and Baccio Bandinelli (1488-1560). In a red chalk sketch by the former in New York, two cows are shown resting side by side.^[1] In the Rotterdam drawing, on the other hand, the mise en page, with one animal above the other, is reminiscent of the layout of sheets from fifteenth-century sketchbooks.

Although the paper bears a watermark that could conceivably be taken as fifteenth-century and Venetian, the drawing style suggests a date in the first half of the sixteenth century. Giulio Campagnola (1482-after 1515) is one of the group of Venetian draughtsmen who worked a great deal in pen and brown ink, but he focused primarily on landscapes and his handling of line was sharper and more subtle. His drawn oeuvre consequently provides too few points of contact to place the Rotterdam drawing in his surroundings. His adopted son, Domenico Campagnola (c.1500-1564), is likewise not a candidate; he had a much more powerful hand when drawing. In the absence of any specific material for comparison, the general indication Northern Italy, first half of the sixteenth century must suffice.