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Landscape (recto); Landscape (verso)

1489–90
Not on view
Discovered by George Goldner at auction in 1992, this view of wooded hills descending toward a river is an extremely rare example of a landscape drawing by the artist, and is drawn in a delicate chiaroscuro technique with brown ink and white on a dark ground, full of atmospheric effects. A very similar motif appears in the background of Perugino's Vision of Saint Bernard (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), an altarpiece painted about 1489 for the Nasi Chapel in the Cistercian church of Santa Maria Maddalena di Cestello, known now as Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, near Florence. The teacher of Raphael (whom he outlived) and one of the painters in highest demand by patrons throughout Italy in the late fifteenth century, Perugino produced major works in Rome, Perugia, Bologna, Cremona, and Florence, as well as in the smaller towns of his native regions of Umbria and the Marches. He is best known for his graceful figural compositions set within monumental architectural backdrops and landscapes which create the exquisitely serene, idyllic mood that his patrons no doubt admired.
(Carmen C. Bambach, 2008, revised 2014)

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Landscape (recto); Landscape (verso)
  • Artist: Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci) (Italian, Città della Pieve, active by 1469–died 1523 Fontignano)
  • Date: 1489–90
  • Medium: Brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, on gray-green prepared paper (recto); pen and brown ink on unprepared off-white paper (verso)
  • Dimensions: 8 1/16 × 11 in. (20.4 × 28 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1993
  • Object Number: 1993.327
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Study of a Kneeling Youth and of the Head of Another, Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci) Italian, Metalpoint on pale pink-beige prepared paper
Study of a Kneeling Youth and of the Head of Another
Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci)
1500
Group of Warriors Standing, Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci) Italian, Tip of the brush and black ink, black wash, traces of black chalk, heightened with white, on dark brown tinted paper.
Group of Warriors Standing
Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci)
late 15th–early 16th century
Two Studies of a Standing Youth in Quattrocento Clothing (recto); a cardinal's hat on a fragmentary coat of arms with a griffin (the arms of the city of Perugia) (verso), Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci) Italian, Metalpoint on pinkish prepared paper; retouched by a later hand in pencil, particularly the figure at the right (recto); black chalk, over dots obtained by the pouncing of a model; partly retouched with brush and brown ink (verso)
Two Studies of a Standing Youth in Quattrocento Clothing (recto); a cardinal's hat on a fragmentary coat of arms with a griffin (the arms of the city of Perugia) (verso)
Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci)
ca. 1504
Study of the Head of a Youth Gazing Upward, Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci) Italian, Black chalk; Squared in black chalk; eyes, nose, ears, mouth retouched with pen and brown ink.
Study of the Head of a Youth Gazing Upward
Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci)
late 15th–early 16th century
Saint John the Baptist; Saint Lucy, Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci) Italian, Oil(?) on wood
Saint John the Baptist; Saint Lucy
Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci)

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