Description
This is a significant early example of pure landscape drawing in Europe, as it is dedicated completely to the depiction of nature for its own sake, without suggestion of a biblical or historical narrative. The rapidity and regularity of strokes used for the evergreen and deciduous trees and the sweeping lines in the foreground suggest that the landscape in Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill was made directly from nature. The sheet comes from an album of 41 landscape studies by Fra Bartolommeo assembled by an eighteenth-century collector and disbound for sale in the mid-20th century. A member of the Dominican Order, Fra Bartolomeo likely produced these drawings during his travels in and around Florence, often to Dominican establishments.
Provenance
Probably by descent to studio assistant Paolo del Signoraccio (died 1547), called Fra. Paolino da Pistoia, monastery of San Marco, Florence (1517-1547?); Possibly bequeathed to his pupil, Sister Plautilla Nelli [1523-1588], convent of Santa Caterina, Florence (1547-1588?); Possibly to the Convent of Santa Caterina da Siena, Florence, to 1725 (1588?-1725?); Cavaliere Francesco Maria Nicolò Gabburri (d. 1742), Florence (his mount), Lugt 2818 and Lugt suppl. 2992b (1725-1742?); By descent to his heirs (1742); William Kent (1685-1748), London and Rome. (1742?-1748?); his sale, London. (ca. 1748); Private collection, southern Ireland (?-1925); Private collection, England (?-1957); with Sotheby’s, London, 20 November 1957, “Drawings of Landscapes and Trees by Fra. Bartolommeo," no. 3. (1957); with F. Kleinberger, New York (1957); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH. (1957-)
Accession Number
1957.498
Medium
pen and brown ink
Dimensions
Sheet: 22.3 x 29.4 cm (8 3/4 x 11 9/16 in.); Secondary Support: 27.5 x 41.2 cm (10 13/16 x 16 1/4 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Credit Line
Gift of the Hanna Fund, Purchase, Dudley P. Allen Fund, Delia E. Holden Fund and L. E. Holden Fund
Tags
Drawing Renaissance (1400–1599) Ink Italian Color: White
Background & Context
Background Story
Fra Bartolommeo (1472-1517) was a Florentine painter known for the balanced, classical manner that makes him one of the most important painters of the High Renaissance in Florence. Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill from c. 1508 is a landscape study in the balanced, atmospheric manner that Fra Bartolommeo developed from his study of Leonardo's atmospheric perspective. The c. 1508 date places this in the period after Fra Bartolommeo's religious crisis and his entry into the Dominican order, when he was producing the balanced, classical paintings that are his most accomplished works, and the landscape subject shows his study of Leonardo's atmospheric perspective applied to a Florentine hillside.
Cultural Impact
Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill is important in the history of Florentine landscape painting because it demonstrates the atmospheric perspective that Fra Bartolommeo developed from his study of Leonardo. Landscape painting was still a relatively new subject in Florentine painting of the early 16th century, and Fra Bartolommeo's atmospheric landscape study shows the High Renaissance applying its balanced, classical manner to the landscape subject that would become one of the most important in Western painting.
Why It Matters
Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill is Fra Bartolommeo's High Renaissance landscape study: a Florentine hillside rendered in the balanced, atmospheric manner that he developed from his study of Leonardo's atmospheric perspective. The c. 1508 painting shows the High Renaissance applying its classical manner to the landscape subject that would become central to Western painting.
