Landscape with a Horseman
Date17th century
CultureItalian
MediumPen and brown ink
ClassificationDrawings
Credit LineMuseum purchase, 1961
Object numberSN719
Upon his trip to The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in 1982, the renowned scholar and connoisseur, Konrad Oberhuber, commented that this drawing was "beautiful," "excellent," and "might be Agostino Carracci."
A family of Bolognese painters, the Carracci were famous throughout the Italian peninsula for their rejection of Mannerism and insistence on classicism and disegno (design). Like his brother, Annibale, and cousin, Ludovico, Agostino was a consummate draftsman. With a particular interest in landscapes, Agostino executed his drawings almost exclusively in pen and ink with economical notation of form and light.
Though provenance research has yet to confirm Dr. Oberhuber's suggestion, the watermark of the Ringling sheet provides helpful information in the pursuit of attribution. The bird atop three eggs is a watermark typically found in sheets from the central and southern parts of Italy, particularly during the late sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. Paper mills in Naples, Palermo, and Rome-where Agostino worked extensively-all used variations on this theme, and the practice of encircling a watermark was also typically Italian.
On View
Not on view
Joachim Antonisz Wtewael
16th Century
18th century