Lot Essay
The attribution was kindly confirmed by Taco Dibbits who will include the drawing in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Muziano's drawings. Two other landscapes by Muziano, which appear to be from the same series since they share the same format, technique and watermark, are in the Uffizi (N. Dacos, Fiamminghi a Roma, artistes des Pays-Bas et de la principauté de Liège à Rome à la Renaissance, exhib. cat., Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1995, nos. 141-2).
The present drawing is strikingly similar, although not directly related, to the series of landscapes with hermits and penitent saints engraved by Cornelis Cort after Muziano's drawings and published cum privilegio Pope Gregory XIII in 1573-5 (Holl. 107-111, 116-117, 121 and 123). Muziano's landscapes spring from the Venetian tradition tempered by the Northern influence of his master Lambert Sustris. However, as Karel van Mander reported, his landscapes have a 'powerful, strong, fantastic manner different from those of the Northerners, something rarely seen among the Italians' (K. van Mander, Schilder-boeck, Haarlem, 1604, fol. 192v, quoted in N. Dacos, op. cit., p. 262).
The present drawing is strikingly similar, although not directly related, to the series of landscapes with hermits and penitent saints engraved by Cornelis Cort after Muziano's drawings and published cum privilegio Pope Gregory XIII in 1573-5 (Holl. 107-111, 116-117, 121 and 123). Muziano's landscapes spring from the Venetian tradition tempered by the Northern influence of his master Lambert Sustris. However, as Karel van Mander reported, his landscapes have a 'powerful, strong, fantastic manner different from those of the Northerners, something rarely seen among the Italians' (K. van Mander, Schilder-boeck, Haarlem, 1604, fol. 192v, quoted in N. Dacos, op. cit., p. 262).