Paul Bril
1554-1626
Wooded Ravine with Distant Harbor View
7 1/4 x 10 13/16 inches (183 x 275 mm)
Pen and brown ink, some point of brush and brown, brown, gray and blue wash, with white opaque watercolor, over black chalk, on paper.
III, 144
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.
Notes
Watermark: none visible through lining, which is an old print.
Description
One of the most influential Northern artists working in Rome in the late sixteenth century, Bril is credited with founding the Italianate landscape tradition perfected in the next century by Claude Lorrain. This sheet is one of only about one hundred drawings by the artist, mostly finished landscapes, that have survived. The composition may have served as the model for a painting, now lost but recorded in a photograph.
Inscriptions/Markings
Inscribed on verso of mount, in an eighteenth-century(?) hand, in faint graphite, "No 9 paul bril 36 frs".
Associated names
Jabach, Everhard, 1618-1695, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Bibliography
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, III, 144.
Stampfle, Felice, with the assistance of Ruth S. Kraemer and Jane Shoaf Turner. Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1991, p. 23, no. 42.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 31, p. 68-69.
100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum. München : Hirmer, 2008, no. 42, repr. [Kathleen Stuart]
Stampfle, Felice, with the assistance of Ruth S. Kraemer and Jane Shoaf Turner. Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1991, p. 23, no. 42.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 31, p. 68-69.
100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum. München : Hirmer, 2008, no. 42, repr. [Kathleen Stuart]
Artist
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Catalog link
Department