A pike (Esox lucius)

This drawing comes from one of the many albums from the collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657), one of the most cultivated and scientifically curious Italian collectors and patrons of the 17th Century. Dal Pozzo, who was a friend of Galileo, had a great interest in archaeology, history and natural history. In order to record the richness of the natural world and human creativity he assembled a large number of albums of drawings for his so-called Museo Cartaceo (Paper Museum). Besides buying drawings for these albums, dal Pozzo also commissioned artists such as Jacopo Ligozzi (1547-1627) and Vincenzo Leonardi (1588-1657) to contribute to them. Almost all the drawings from the albums, however, are unsigned and the authorship of them usually remains anonymous. The present sheet may be compared to a drawing of a Left-eye Flounder (Family Bothidae), which shows a similar loose handling of the brush and is also from the Museo Cartaceo, now at the Royal Collection, Windsor (The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, exhib. cat., The British Museum, London, 1993, no. 94).