A wealthy banker, Pierre Crozat was one of the foremost collectors of drawings in the eighteenth century. He befriended Watteau, offering him commissions, housing, and access to his collection. Watteau was entranced with the sixteenth-century Venetian landscape drawings he found there and copied many of them. In this case, the original drawing by Domenico Campagnola (1500–1564) is also in the collection of the Museum (1972.118.243). Although he is faithful to Campagnola's composition, Watteau substituted his preferred medium, red chalk, for the Venetian's pen and brown ink.

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