Probably by Salvator Rosa, 'Wooded Bank with Figures', probably 1660s
Wooded Bank with Figures
Probably by Salvator Rosa
On loan: Gere Collection Paintings to the Ashmolean (2024 - 2026), The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford, UK About the work
Overview
Rosa was one of the first artists known to have painted nature 'en plein air', or out-of-doors. This sketch is unusual in that it appears to have been painted on two separate occasions. The fissures and cracks in the rocks and the foliage above are loosely painted, while details such as the bamboo leaves, grass and flowers seem to have been added at a later date. It is possible that Salvator Rosa added these details back in the studio, and the addition of the bandits turns the sketch into a finished painting.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Wooded Bank with Figures
- Artist
- Probably by Salvator Rosa
- Artist dates
- 1615 - 1673
- Date made
- probably 1660s
- Medium and support
- Oil on paper laid down on board
- Dimensions
- 28.1 × 41.7 cm
- Inscription summary
- Inscribed
- Acquisition credit
- The Gere Collection, on long-term loan to the National Gallery
- Inventory number
- L867
- Location
- On loan: Gere Collection Paintings to the Ashmolean (2024 - 2026), The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford, UK
- Image copyright
- The Gere Collection, on long-term loan to the National Gallery, © Private collection 2000. Used by permission
- Collection
- Main Collection
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
More works by Salvator Rosa
(Showing 6 of 11 works)
The story of the honest woodsman – the subject of Rosa’s painting – is taken from Aesop’s Fables, a collection of moral tales from ancient Greece. In the story, the god Mercury takes pity on a woodsman who has accidentally dropped his axe into a river. He retrieves two axes from the water, one go...
The apocryphal Book of Tobit describes how Tobit, a blind old man, sent his son Tobias to the distant city of Media to collect a debt. The boy was accompanied by the Archangel Raphael, protector of travellers. In this painting, Tobias struggles with a fish that had tried to devour him, as Raphael...
Not on display
Passing through a gloomy forest, two riders ask for directions from a group of peasants resting at the side of the road. The man on the white horse points towards the sunlit valley beyond, his gesture mirrored by one of the seated figures. A shaft of warm evening light cuts through the dense cano...
A scowling man wearing a scholar’s cap and brown gown appears before us. His drapery, wrapped tightly around him, has the smooth, solid look of a sculpted Roman bust. Half of his face is in shadow and the cold lighting emphasises his long, narrow nose, unkempt hair, unshaven face and furrowed bro...
Beneath a pitch-dark sky, bizarre and terrifying magical spells are being cast. Monstrous figures, some of them naked, are arranged as if on a stage set, illuminated by scattered pools of light.In the centre, one witch smokes the corpse of a criminal that hangs from a withered tree while her comp...
Style of Salvator Rosa
This picture, inspired by the landscapes of Salvator Rosa, was probably painted by an Italian artist working during the eighteenth century. A rock in the foreground to the right of the figures bears a prominent ‘SR’ monogram – a ruse to encourage potential buyers to believe that the painting was...
Not on display
Style of Salvator Rosa
Salvator Rosa’s dramatic late landscapes presented nature as wild and dangerous, and were filled with striking effects of broken light, jagged trees and remote signs of civilisation. This picture is thought to be by an imitator working in Rosa’s style during the late seventeenth century: it lacks...
Not on display
Style of Salvator Rosa
In the apocryphal Book of Tobit, Tobias travels to the city of Media to collect a debt for his blind father, Tobit, accompanied by the Archangel Raphael. When Tobias stops beside the river Tigris, a fish tries to devour him. Raphael directs him to remove the fish’s heart, liver and gall bladder;...
Not on display
After Salvator Rosa
This is a copy by an anonymous artist of Salvator Rosa’s original work, which is now in the Hospital de Tavera in Toledo, Spain. The picture’s subject is taken from the Old Testament Book of Genesis, which tells how the young Ishmael and his mother Hagar were banished into the desert of Beersheba...
Not on display
After Salvator Rosa
This is a copy of a signed work by Salvator Rosa of about 1645 (now in the Pitti Palace, Florence). It depicts an episode from the life of Diogenes, the ancient Greek philosopher who wanted to be free of all earthly attachments. Upon seeing a boy using his hands to drink from a stream, Diogenes t...
Not on display
You've viewed 6 of 11 works