Landscape with knights

Rock landscape in the classical Veneto style introduced by Titian Vecellio and developed, in particular, by Domenico Campagnola.

Anonymous etching, undescribed by bibliographic repertories, known only through the Baselitz Collection example published in the 2002 catalog of the Geneva exhibition at the Cabinet des Estampes du Musee d'Art et d'Histoire.

The work's descriptive note reads, "For Venetian and Veronese engravers, the depiction of landscapes seems to have exerted a particular attraction in the second half of the sixteenth century, an interest certainly inseparable from the earlier experiences of Titian and Domenico Campagnola. Battista del Moro, his son Marco, and Orazio Farinati tried their hand at this genre, which recurrently included architecture, trees, a river, and mountains. The natural environment thus suggested defines the atmosphere in which the figures move, organized in small narrative scenes.

This anonymous print thus presents a compositional scheme that we find notably in a Giovanni Battista Fontana, although here the hand is completely different and the definition of the image much less precise than in the Veronese artist. The elevated viewpoint shows a company of men advancing toward the viewer, and it is difficult to tell whether they are hunters or travelers with an armed escort. The eye then wanders to the central grove of trees, filling the widening of the composition to the sides, then to the city and the countryside, before finally settling on the mountains in the distance. The sky is particularly well done, with clouds crowning the vast expanse.

The gray tone of the engraving, probably due to the many scratches on the plate itself, shows the graphic freedom typical of etching, which allows the details of the terrain and the variety of vegetation to be rendered. The image is nevertheless to be understood as naturalistic, although it retains an artificial appearance due to the lowered perspective, and no trace is seen of the mannerist fantasies characteristic of compositions produced around mid-century" (translated from N. Strasser, Le Beau Style (1520-1620) Gravures Manieristes de la Collection Georg Baselitz, p. 238).

Etching, printed on contemporary laid paper with watermark "two-headed eagle surmounted by crown" (the same as the other known example from the Baselitz Collection), trimmed to copper, restoration to lower right corner about 3 cm, otherwise in very good condition.

A very rare work.

Bibliografia

Natalie Strasser in “Le Beau Style (1520-1620) Gravures Manieristes de la Collection Georg Baselitz”, pp. 238-239, n. 103.