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A Small Town on the Crest of a Slope

1504–07
Not on view
A leading painter in early sixteenth-century Florence, Fra Bartolomeo was also a gifted and prolific draftsman. Among the vast number of surviving drawings by his hand is a remarkable group of independent landscape studies produced at a time when works of this genre were still uncommon. Achieved with clean strokes of the pen and considerable freedom and economy of line, the rural townscape gives the impression of having been observed from nature. Indeed, the artist frequently traveled the Tuscan countryside to sketch in the open air. Yet the sheet is not purely a study after life: certain details, such as the tall tower at right, closely recall an engraving by Albrecht Dürer, while the trees in the foreground are contrived as a frame for the scene beyond. Fra Bartolomeo adapted this composition for the background of a painting of the Nativity (Art Institute of Chicago).

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: A Small Town on the Crest of a Slope
  • Artist: Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino) (Italian, Florence 1473–1517 Florence)
  • Date: 1504–07
  • Medium: Pen and brown ink
  • Dimensions: 11 x 8-9/16 in. (27.9 x 21.7 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1957
  • Object Number: 57.165
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Mother and Child, Figures Fighting (Study for the Rape of Dinah?), Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino) Italian, Red chalk with traces of black chalk
Mother and Child, Figures Fighting (Study for the Rape of Dinah?)
Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino)
1515–17
Drapery Study for a Standing Male Figure in Profile Facing Left, Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino) Italian, Black chalk, highlighted with white chalk, on tan paper
Drapery Study for a Standing Male Figure in Profile Facing Left
Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino)
1512–17
The Annunciation (recto); Faint View of Buildings (verso), Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino) Italian, Pen and brown ink (kneeling angel at left), faint black chalk (the hardly legible standing figure of the Virgin at right) (recto); faint view of buildings in pen and brown ink (verso)
The Annunciation (recto); Faint View of Buildings (verso)
Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino)
1472–1517
Landscape (Wooded Approach to a Town), Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino) Italian, Pen and brown ink
Landscape (Wooded Approach to a Town)
Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino)
ca. 1508
Study of Drapery over the Knees of a Seated Figure, Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino) (?) Italian, Black chalk, highlighted with white; squared in black chalk
Study of Drapery over the Knees of a Seated Figure
Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino)
1472–1517

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