![](https://www.themorgan.org/sites/default/files/images/collection/drawings/246981v_0001.jpg)
Watermark: none.
Disarming in its simplicity, this study of a wintry tree rendered with swift, delicate penstrokes and stippling reveals Fra Bartolommeo's fascination with nature. Unlike most artists of his era, Fra Bartolommeo (so called because of his years spent as a friar in the Dominican order) recorded the landscapes that he saw during his travels, apparently making the drawings outdoors rather than in the studio. Like the majority of his landscape drawings, the present sheet comes from a disbound sketchbook, the drawings in which seem to have been made for pleasure rather than as studies for specific paintings. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"
Paolino, fra, 1488-1547, former owner.
Nelli, Plautilla, suor, 1523-1588, former owner.
Gabburri, Francesco Maria Niccolò, 1676-1742, former owner.
Kent, William, 1685-1748, former owner.
Calmann, Hans M., 1899-1982, former owner.
Thaw, Eugene Victor, former owner.
Thaw, Clare, former owner.
Gronau 1957, lot 39; New York 1992; New York 1994-95, no. 4; London 1996-97, no. 3; New York and Williamstown 2017-18, 34-35.
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection", 2017. Exh. cat., no. 6, repr.
Denison, Cara D. et al. The Thaw Collection : Master Drawings and New Acquisitions. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1994, no. 4.