Rural Landscape with a Peasant Woman on Horseback

Francesco Zuccarelli Rural Landscape with a Peasant Woman on Horseback

The absolute protagonist of this painting by Zuccarelli is the landscape, characterized by a calm and serene atmosphere, by the prevalence of a clear and luminous palette and by the use of a pictorial technique that makes use of hatchings in the description of the trees and a softer and more nuanced rendering in the representation of the sky and the background. All these elements lead to dating the painting to the end of the fifth decade of the 18th century, corresponding to the artist’s stay in Lombardy. The work comes from the Archbishop’s Picture Gallery and is part of the collection of Cardinal Giuseppe Pozzobonelli (1696-1783).

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Artwork details

Artist:
Francesco Zuccarelli (Pitigliano (GR) 1702 - Firenze 1788)
Title:
Rural Landscape with a Peasant Woman on Horseback
Date:
c. 1745-1750
Medium and technique:
oil on canvas
Dimensions:
49,5 × 66,7
Inventory:
MD 2001.025.010
Location
Location: Pozzobonelli Collection, first floor

The Pozzobonelli Collection comprises a group of works that came to the Diocesan Museum from the Archbishop’s Picture Gallery and reflect the distinctive collecting interests of Cardinal Giuseppe Pozzobonelli (1696–1783). The paintings form one of the most significant expressions of the Arcadian culture that spread through Milan in the eighteenth century. Mostly small in size, they depict Arcadian subjects, pastoral landscapes and seascapes, and architectural views with figures. They are attributed to artists from Roman, Venetian and Lombard circles and, to a lesser extent, Tuscan, Neapolitan and Flemish circles, active between the late seventeenth century and the 1770s. Among the painters represented in the collection are Francesco Zuccarelli, Vittorio Amedeo Cignaroli, the Cavalier Tempesta, Paolo Anesi and Giovanni Paolo Panini.

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