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View of the river Arno in Florence, looking upstream, with fisherman and a river god

Maker

(artist)
1523-1605

Title

Date of Production

1575

Medium

pen and brown ink, blue wash, white bodycolour on laid paper, incised for transfer, with brown ink framing lines

Dimensions

Height: 20 cm
Width: 29.6 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.269

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

Once established in Florence, the Bruges-born painter Jan van der Straet, known there as Stradanus, was commissioned to design a tapestry series for the Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. Although only a few of these tapestries were ever woven, most of the designs were subsequently adapted into engravings. Van der Straet’s lavish scenes of hunting, fowling and fishing became part of a large-scale print series which was published in Antwerp in the late 1570s.
Here, the artist changed his mind during the creative process: he cut out and replaced a section of paper around the river god and reworked the position of the figure several times. The hidden traces of these changes were revealed through an in-depth technical analysis.

Notes

Around 1561, Stradanus was commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici to prepare designs for a series of 28 tapestries of hunting scenes to decorate his villa at Poggio a Caiano; several series of engravings were published after these designs. This scene was engraved for a 1580 series, published by Philippe Galle, comprising 44 hunting subjects with a dedication to Cosimo de' Medici - this is plate 39.

Provenance

possibly Bernard Quaritch (London), in 1881 (if part of no. 3521 in his Catalogue of works on natural history, physics, mathematics, and other sciences offered for sale at the cash prices affixed, described as ‘Sixty original drawings by Stradanus, of Field Sports, Hunting Wild Animals, Fowling, Fishing &c.’) or 1890 (if part of no. 155 in his catalogue Exhibition of books and manuscripts, described as ‘Sixty original tinted Drawings by the painter Jan Stradanus’); possibly purchased there by William A. Baillie-Grohman, London and Tyrol (1851-1921), L.370; by descent to his wife; their estate sale, Sotheby’s (London), 14 May 1923, lot 162 (along with D.1952.RW.281, 283, 1633-1635); purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952) (£3.75); Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Flemish drawings from the Witt Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, October 1977-January 1978

Exhibition of paintings: seventeenth century Dutch and Flemish schools, loaned by the Trustees of the National Gallery, and drawings loaned by Sir Robert Witt, C.B.E. and Lady Witt., Hanley Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, 29/02/1928-26/05/1928; City of York Museum and Art Gallery, York, 01/06/1928-01/09/1928

Exhibition of Belgian and Flemish Art 1300-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1927

Literature

Leesberg, Marjolein, The New Hollstein: Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, vol. 19, Johannes Stradanus, Oudekerk aan den Ijssel 2008
vol. III, p. 146, under no. 459

Flemish drawings from the Witt Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, October 1977- January 1978
cat. no. 7

Bok-van Kammen, Stradanus and the hunt, PhD, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore 1977
pp. 520-21, under no. 94 ...More

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 130

Exhibition of paintings : seventeenth century dutch and flemish schools, loaned by the Trustees of the National Gallery, and drawings loaned by Sir Robert Witt, C.B.E. and Lady Witt., Hanley Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent and City of York Museum and Art Gallery, York, 1928, 1928

Exhibition of Belgian and Flemish Art 1300-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London 1927, 1927
cat. no. 554

Baillie-Grohman, W.A., Sport in Art: An Iconography of Sport During Four Hundred Years, From the Beginning of the Fifteenth to the End of the Eighteenth Centuries, London, 1913
pp. 134-35
fig. 78 ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: upper centre, traced in black chalk on verso: shield with a half-unicorn above the fess and two angled bends in the base – a variant of Briquet 1884 – according to Briquet, a mark whose variants were used for a long time in Italy, from 1529 to 1724. Same paper as on RW.281, 283, 1634 and 1635.

Inscription: Recto: lower right edge, brown ink, signed by the artist: "Strad".

Collector's mark: Removed and now mounted with the drawing, stamped in black ink: William A. Baillie-Grohman (L.370).

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