Attributed to Pietro Berrettini, called Pietro da Cortona

With Louis Meier, London, from whom purchased, circa 1952

Newcastle, 1974, no. 71 (as Salvator Rosa)

Although landscape drawings of this type are more often attributed to Annibale or Agostino Carracci, the character and the handling of the pen are somehow reminiscent of Pietro da Cortona.  There is little with which to compare it as his more famous landscape drawings are elaborate and very worked up, such as one formerly at Holkham Hall.¹  Cortona did, however, paint several small landscapes as overdoors in the gallery of the Villa Sacchetti at Castel Fusano, and it is conceivable that this study could have been for such a project.²

1.  Sale, London, Christie's, 2 July 1991, lot 28
2.  J.M. Merz, Pietro da Cortona, Tübingen 1991, figs. 218, 219