Details
GHERARDO CIBO (Genoa 1512-1600 Arcevia)
Houses and trees seen above a wall
pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with white on blue paper
734 x 1114 in. (23 x 28.5 cm)
Provenance
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 27 April, 1960, part of lots 1-12.
with Schaeffer Galleries, New York.
Literature
J. Bolten, ‘Messer Ulisse Severino da Cingoli, a bypath in the history of art’, Master Drawings, VII, 1970, no. 2, p. 143, no. 121 (as Ulisse Severino da Cingoli).
G. Mangani and L. Tongiorgi Tomasi, Gherardo Cibo. Dilettante di Botanica e Pittore di ‘Paesi’. Arte, scienza e illustrazione botanica nel XVI secolo, Ancona, 2013, no. 305.
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Lot Essay

In the last years of the 1530s, as a member of several diplomatic delegations, Cibo traveled to Germany, France, and Flanders. Soon afterwards he decided to retire and live a more secluded life in Rocca Contrada (today’s Arcevia), a small settlement in the Marche region. Although his landscapes portray views of the region in the Italian Apennines where he lived, for a long time they have been thought to be works by Flemish artists. Not only had Cibo visited Northern Europe, but he was deeply influenced by Flemish landscapists, known to him through prints. At times he directly borrowed individual motifs from prints and mixed them with details observed from life. Cibo’s alluring creations on blue paper, whether fictitious or topographically correct, remain among the most charming landscapes from 16th Century Italy.

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