A shepherd driving a flock c. 1630-35
Yellowish-brown oil paint on paper | 23.1 x 33.6 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 903891
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A drawing of a shepherd walking to the right alongside a cow, with sheep to the left and right; with trees just behind them, and a rugged landscape beyond Castiglione’s earliest known works are pastoral landscapes, a genre that was a speciality of minor Genoese painters, and he was to return to this subject matter throughout his life. These drawings are executed in oil paint on paper, a distinctive technique that soon became Castiglione’s hallmark. Like all the drawings in the exhibition, they are probably finished works of art rather than studies for paintings. How (or even if) Castiglione used drawings to prepare for his paintings is uncertain: he did not work out the details of his paintings with sequences of preliminary studies, and both his oil drawings and his paintings on canvas were executed with little if any underdrawing.
Provenance
Probably Carlo II and Fernandino-Carlo Gonzaga, 9th and 10th Dukes of Mantua; Zaccaria Sagredo; from whose heirs purchased by Joseph Smith, British Consul in Venice, 1752; from whom purchased by George III, 1762
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Medium and techniques
Yellowish-brown oil paint on paper
Measurements
23.1 x 33.6 cm (sheet of paper)
Object type(s)