This sheet belongs to a larger group of Tuscan landscape drawings which were kept in an album assembled for the Florentine collector Niccolò Gabburri in 1730. Unfortunately, the album was later taken apart by a dealer and the 39 loose sheets were sold separately. Seventeen sheets have drawings on both sides. It would seem that Fra Bartolommeo made these drawings primarily for his own pleasure while travelling in Tuscany since he used only a few of them as backgrounds in his paintings. [text: Albert Elen]
Rocky Landscape with a Ruined Archway, some Buildings and Figures
Fra Bartolommeo (Bartolomeo-Domenico di Paolo del Fattorino, Baccio della Porta) (in circa 1505-1509)
Specifications
| Title | Rocky Landscape with a Ruined Archway, some Buildings and Figures |
|---|---|
| Material and technique | Pen and brown ink |
| Object type |
Drawing
> Two-dimensional object
> Art object
|
| Location | This object is in storage |
| Dimensions |
Height 202 mm Width 284 mm |
|---|---|
| Artists |
Draughtsman:
Fra Bartolommeo (Bartolomeo-Domenico di Paolo del Fattorino, Baccio della Porta)
|
| Accession number | MB 1958/T 1 (PK) |
| Credits | Purchased with the support of Rembrandt Association, 1958 |
| Department | Drawings & Prints |
| Acquisition date | 1958 |
| Creation date | in circa 1505-1509 |
| Watermark | lower part of a flower (stem and two leaves) #part of tulip (30 x 60 mm, m.b., op P5 van 8P, vH, compare to Briquet 6664, Florence 1508) |
| Provenance | Fra Bartolommeo’s estate (1517); his heir Fra Paolino da Pistoia (1488-1547), Florence; Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523-1588), Florence; Convent of St. Catherine of Siena, Florence; Cavaliere Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri (1676-1742), Florence, acquired from the convent in 1725 and mounted in one of two albums (1729); Gabburri Heirs; Art dealer William Kent, London, bought from the Gabburri Heirs in 1758-60; onbekende veiling, Londen, 1760-1761; - ; Private collection (acquired in Ireland, 1925); sale London (Sotheby's) 20.11.1957, lot 34; Art dealer Colnaghi, London; purchase with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt 1958 |
| Exhibitions | Paris/Rotterdam/Haarlem 1962, no. 60; Florence 1980, no. 87; Rotterdam/New York 1990, no. 57; Rotterdam/Boston/Fort Worth/New York/Florence/Copenhagen 1990-1994, no. 105; Florence 2000, no. 3; Rotterdam 2009 (coll 2 kw 2); Paris 2014, no. 4; Rotterdam 2016, no. J |
| Internal exhibitions |
Italiaanse tekeningen in Nederlands bezit (1962) Van Pisanello tot Cézanne (1992) De Collectie Twee - wissel II, Prenten & Tekeningen (2009) Fra Bartolommeo (2016) |
| Research |
Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600 |
| Literature | Gronau 1957, pp. II-IV, no. 34, ill.; Jeudwine 1957, p. 135; Junghans 1959, p. 121; Paris/Rotterdam/Haarlem 1962, no. 60, pl. 43; Rome 1972-73, pp. 10-11, no. 4, ill.; Berlin 1973, p. 35 under no. 43; Paris 1975a, under no. 21; Florence 1980, no. 87, ill.; Malke 1980, under no. 49; Luijten/Meijer 1990, no. 57, ill.; Fischer 1990, no. 105, ill.; Elen 1995, pp. 280-284, no. 46, and passim; Florence 2000, no. 3, ill.; Frankfurt/Paris 2014, pp. 65-66, fig. 9; Rotterdam 2016, p. 230. nr. J, ill. |
| Material | |
| Object | |
| Geographical origin | Italy > Southern Europe > Europe |
Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Author: Chris Fischer
This delightful view is typical of Fra Bartolommeo, by whom about fifty drawings of landscapes and trees are known. It was included in an album of forty-one sheets that had been assembled by Cavaliere Gabburri in about 1730 and were forgotten until they appeared at a sale in 1957, where they were sold separately.
As is to be expected from a High Renaissance artist, the bulk of Fra Bartolommeo’s almost 1,500 preserved drawings are preparatory figure studies for his many monumental altarpieces. The large number of landscape drawings, however, shows that he also paid considerable attention to this subject. They are by far the largest group of landscape drawings by any Italian Renaissance artist, comparable in date only to the drawings and watercolours of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
Fra Bartolommeo’s landscapes are depictions of lonely hermitages or convents, small towns, wooded hillsides, trees and rock formations. To judge from a number of subjects that have been identified, most of them seem to be topographically precise renderings of particular sites, sometimes with a corresponding drawing that adapts and reworks the topographical view. All the landscape drawings are in pen and ink, and constitute a uniform group datable between circa 1505 and 1509.[1] This drawing of a rocky landscape with a ruined gate, a group of buildings and a couple of wayfarers was executed on the basis of a sketch of the same size in Frankfurt.[2] In the Frankfurt drawing Fra Bartolommeo delineated the contours with straight and abrupt or curved zigzag lines, and indicated the landslide in the foreground with long, wiry hatching. The Rotterdam drawing was begun in a similar manner, and the forms were filled in with a very varied and lively pen characterized by restless lines of varying breadth and intensity.
Pairs of drawings of the same location, one sketch-like, the other more elaborated, are quite common among Fra Bartolommeo’s landscapes. They indicate that the painter first made a sketchy version hastily drawn on the spot: in this instance, the Frankfurt drawing. That rough draft served for a more detailed and laboured version which was probably executed at leisure at home, represented here by the Rotterdam drawing, in which the first image has been enriched with a more thorough account of details like the cliffs and rocks in the foreground, and by the addition of the somewhat fancy group of buildings on the left approached by the two tiny travellers who give life to the scene. This, and the more sketch-like drawing that preceded it, were apparently not used in any painting and their location has not been established.
All about the artist
Fra Bartolommeo (Bartolomeo-Domenico di Paolo del Fattorino, Baccio della Porta)
Florence 1472/1474 - Florence 1517
Fra Bartolommeo is one of the most illustrious artists of the Italian High Renaissance. Born Bartolommeo di Paolo, he was also called Baccio della Porta. On...
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