Although landscape never assumed a central role in his art, Annibale Carracci's innovations in the genre played a pivotal role in the development of the seventeenth-century landscape. This rare plein-air study shows the artist concentrating on detail, rather than on the more common broadly conceived view. Probably begun from life and finished in the studio, this sensitive rendering of vegetation along a riverbank likely dates to the artist's late Bolognese period of around 1590–92, before his departure for Rome in 1595.
Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), Eroded Riverbank with Trees and Exposed Roots
, ca. 1590-92, Pen and brown ink; lined and mounted on closely trimmed Mariette mount , Purchased, The Morgan Library & Museum
, 1972.6