Although landscape never assumed a central role in his art, Annibale Carracci's innovations in the genre played a pivotal role in the development of the seventeenth-century landscape. This rare plein-air study shows the artist concentrating on detail, rather than on the more common broadly conceived view. Probably begun from life and finished in the studio, this sensitive rendering of vegetation along a riverbank likely dates to the artist's late Bolognese period of around 1590–92, before his departure for Rome in 1595.
Watermark: none visible through lining.
Inscribed in pen and brown ink at lower center, "Anibbale Caracci."
Mariette, Pierre Jean, 1694-1774, former owner.
Lawrence, Thomas, Sir, 1769-1830, former owner.
Ellesmere, Francis Egerton, Earl of, 1800-1857, former owner.
Jacob Bean, Drawings and Prints by the Caracci, exh.cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, no. 25, repr.
The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, European Drawings 1375-1825, catalogue by Cara D. Denison and Helen B. Mules, with Jane V. Shoaf; 1981, pp. 64-65, no. 38, repr.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Bolognese Drawings in North American Collections, 1500-1800, catalogue by Mimi Cazort and Catherine Johnston, 1982, pp. 70-71, no. 29, repr.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 2006, no. 20, pp. 46-47, repr.
100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum. Munich, 2008, no. 20, repr.
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich, "100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum," 2008, pp. 58-59, no. 20, repr.