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Flight into Egypt

Maker

(artist)
1500-1564

Title

Flight into Egypt

Date of Production

(circa) 1550

Medium

traces of black chalk, pen and brown ink on laid paper, with remnants of a brown ink framing line mostly trimmed away

Dimensions

Height: 23 cm
Width: 38.3 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.2099

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

This delicate rendering of an idyllic landscape relates to a print designed by the Venetian artist Domenico Campagnola, who is best known for his pastoral scenes. It shows the same composition as the print, but in reverse. The drawing was once owned by the English artist Peter Lely. Before he specialised fully in portraiture in the 1660s, Lely’s ambition had been to paint similar Arcadian landscapes, which an early biographer called ‘the natural bent of his genius’. Drawings such as this may have provided inspiration for his own work.

Notes

Impressions of an engraving after this by Lucas van Uden are in the British Museum (S.2871 and 1868,0612.1405), where van Uden credited Titian as the inventor. Tobias Nickel in his PhD thesis on the Landscape Drawings of Campagnola included this in his catalogue raisonné. He interpreted the scene as right after the birth of Christ, in preparation for the Flight, and based on the figure style assigned it to circa 1550.

Provenance

probably a Flemish collection, when reproduced in engraving by Lucas van Uden, before 1650; Peter Lely, London (1618-1680), L.2092; Francis Abbott, Edinburgh (1800-1893), L.970; Lieutenant-Colonel E.L. Mears; his sale, Sotheby's (London), 30 June 1925, lot 11; purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), L.2228b; Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Special Display - Peter Lely - The Draughtsman and his Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 24/09/2012-13/01/2013

Disegni veneti di collezioni inglesi, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, 1980

Literature

Nickel, Tobias Benjamin, Die Landschaftszeichnungen von Domenico Campagnola (1500-1564), PhD Thesis, University of Vienna 2017
vol. I, pp. 124, 201; vol. II, no. 170 and pp. 162, 243, 276, 279n2, 285n5, 286, 311n2, 312, 336, 361n3, 393n3, 396n10, 585
ill.

OEuvres sur papier du XVIe au XXe siècle. (Works on Paper from 16th to the 20th Century), Boquet & Marty de Cambiaire Fine Art, Paris, 2013
p. 6n1 under no. 1

Brouard, Christophe, 'Les fabriques dans l’élaboration du paysage champêtre: l’exemple des dessins de la première moitié du XVIe siècle à Venise' in 'Bulletin de l’Association des Historiens de l’art Italiens', 2004 (2005) - pp. 102-10; 10
pp. 104, 109n8 ...More

Sievers, Ann H., Linda Muehlig and Nancy Rich, Master drawings from the Smith College Museum of Art, New York 2001
p. 44n14

Levesque, Catherine, The Illustrated Bartsch, 6 (Commentary), Netherlandish Artists, New York 1986
p. 34 under no. .054
ill. on p. 35

Disegni veneti di collezioni inglesi, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, 1980
cat. no. 14
pp. 30-31
ill.

Hollstein, F.W.H., Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts ca. 1450-1700, Amsterdam 1949-2004
vol. 30 (1986), p. 229 under no. 1

Walker, Robert, Domenico Campagnola, Venetian Landscape Draughtsman of the Sixteenth Century, PhD thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1941
Appendix p. 17, no. 111 ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Collector's mark: collector's mark of Francis Abbott (L.970)

Collector's mark: collector's mark of Peter Lely (L.2092)

Collector's mark: collector's mark of Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b)

Inscription: dom Campagnola

Inscription: 06 R. 12: / No 650. [1650?] //

Inscription: Lely F[...] 1669 / 21 x 6[...] //

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