A farmhouse on a wooded hill

Formerly identified as Messer Ulisse Severino da Cingoli by Jaap Bolten in 1969, the artist's actual name was discovered at the time of an exhibition organized in 1989 at San Severino Marche in Italy. Born in 1512 in Genoa to an aristocratic family, Cibo studied in Rome and Bologna. He travelled to Germany in the 1530s before retiring to Rocca Contrada, where he died in 1600. The album of landscapes kept in the Biblioteca Communale di Jesi which bore an inscription 'Messer Ulisse Severino da Cingoli' prompted the confusion. Later, Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi revealed a totally different side to Cibo's oeuvre, that of a keen botanist. It was probably during his visit to the Low countries in the spring of 1540 that Cibo was inspired by the prints of Hieronymus Cock. A similar drawing by the artist was sold in these Rooms on 4 July 1995, lot 25.