A Mediterranean landscape with figures boarding a boat in choppy seas, a fragment

Antonio Francesco Peruzzini’s painterly style, marked by spiky and staccato handling of paint, has often been confused with the loose and swift brushwork of his collaborator, Alessandro Magnasco. The two artists crossed paths in Florence where they were patronized by the great lover of art and literature Ferdinand de’ Medici, for whom they produced a number of paintings. The landscapes were supplied by Peruzzini and figures by Magnasco – two of these collaborations, featuring hermits in forested landscapes, remain in the collection of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence (inv. nos. 5870 and 6247).

The present painting is perhaps the lower corner of a larger composition which has been cropped along the upper and left edges. The quick, short and almost frenzied brushstrokes as well as the mossy green palette and ochre ground are recognizable hallmarks of Peruzzini’s style. When the painting was published by Laura Murti and Daniele de Sarno Prignano in 1994, it was known to the authors only from a black-and-white photograph. We are grateful to Daniele de Sarno Prignano and Laura Muti who, on the basis of high-resolution color photographs, have revised their opinion and now consider the painting may be a product of collaboration between Antonio Francesco Peruzzini and Alessandro Magnasco (for the figures) (private communication, April 2025).