Mountainous Landscape with a Small Town on a Lake

Domenico Campagnola (in circa 1515-1516)

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Specifications

Title	Mountainous Landscape with a Small Town on a Lake
Material and technique	Pen and brown ink
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is travelling

Dimensions	Height 169 mm Width 244 mm
Artists	Artist: Domenico Campagnola Previously attributed: Alessandro Allori
Accession number	I 339 (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1515-1516
Watermark	none (vV, 6P, fine paper); removed backing sheet: none (vV, 5P)
Inscriptions	'Ale[x]andro Allori' (below left, pen and light brown ink), 'Z 14' (verso, above left centre, upside down, pen and brown ink), 'Georgion' (idem. below right, upside down, pen and brown ink)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Mark	F.W. Koenigs (L.1023a) on removed backing sheet
Provenance	Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1929 (Alessandro Allori); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	Amsterdam 1953, no. T 19; Venice/Florence 1985, no. 18; Maastricht/Bruges 2002, no. II.12; Rotterdam 2009 (coll 2 kw 3); Rotterdam (Rondom Fra B.) 2016
Internal exhibitions	De Collectie Twee - wissel III, Prenten & Tekeningen (2009) Rondom Fra Bartolommeo (2016)
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Amsterdam 1953, no. T 19 (circle Giorgione); Aikema/Meijer 1985, no. 18, ill (D. Campagnola); Ruggeri 1985, p. 235; Byam Shaw 1985, p. 832; Saccomani in Washington 1995, p. 150, under no. 31, no. 3; Van der Sman 2002-03, p. 84, no. II.12, ill. (D. Campagnola, early work); Saccomani 2004, pp. 203-204, nos. 9, 10 (G. Campagnola, late work); Saccomani in Baudequin 2011, p. 124 under no. 33, pp. 220-221, no. 8; Nickel 2017, vol. 1, p. 47, no. 230, p. 107 no. 509-510, p. 108, vol. 2, pp. 16, 23, 29, 31, 33, 69, 71-72 no. 35 (D. Campagnola, early work), pp. 73-74, 91-93, 96, 100, 105 no. 2, p. 592
Material	Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Brown ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Pen > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

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Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Gert Jan van der Sman

This sheet is one of the earliest landscape drawings by Domenico Campagnola. Together with his Landscape with a Village on a River Bank (Paris, private collection) it gives a good impression of the way the young Domenico imitated the style of his adoptive father and teacher Giulio Campagnola (c.1482-after 1515) and at the same time took a first, cautious step towards a more distinct handling of line. In 1517, Domenico began to use a more powerful hand, with which he created striking dynamism in his drawings and in the copper engravings he made himself.

Elisabetta Saccomani’s much repeated attribution to Giulio Campagnola does not hold water. Neither in the sheet discussed here nor in the exceptionally fresh drawing that survives in Paris do we find the lively chiaroscuro effects that lend relief to the trees in Giulio’s drawing Mountain Landscape with Buildings and with Two Bearded Men in the Foreground.^[1]At the same time, it is noticeable that the outlines of the tree trunks in the foreground on the right are quite sharply accentuated, a method that is typical of Domenico.

The Rotterdam drawing is an early example of a paysage ordonné.^[2]In this type of landscape drawing, hills with lush vegetation, mountain peaks, rustic buildings and a still lake are divided over the picture plane in a measured way. The groups of buildings are placed one above the other in two tiers. The vertical effect of the tall tree on the right in the foreground acts as a connecting link between these two plateaus. Only the outlines of the mountain range on the horizon are drawn. This depiction of a ‘white’ mountain range may be linked to Domenico Campagnola’s study of the prints of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), in particular his woodcut The Visitation of 1503. Using purely graphic means, Domenico succeeded in evoking a tranquil, poetic atmosphere. The landscape drawing was most probably conceived as a work of art in its own right, intended for an art lover or a personal friend.

Footnotes

^[1]Musée du Louvre, inv. 4648; Oberhuber in: Paris 1993, pp. 506-07.

^[2]Châtelet 1984.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

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