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Res. Katalogtext: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 61: 

FORMER INV. NOS.: 326 (M. 1804); KM 185.

TECHNICAL NOTES: The support consists of single piece of
coarse, plain-weave linen fabric. The ground is red and covers the
whole support. The painting is not lined. It has been mounted on
a strainer with hand-forged nails, not the usual staples seen on
most of the Martelli mountings. On the back of the strainer are the
words “Drottningholm tillhörigt” (Belongs to Drottningholm). The
varnish is yellowed and the painting is dirty but otherwise in good
condition.

PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 15 (as Domenichino); Sander
1872–76, p. 123, no. 326 (as Domenichino); Göthe 1887, p. 301 (as
Domenichino); NM Cat. 1958, p. 236 (as anonymous, 18th century);
NM Cat. 1990, p. 226 (as Pier Francesco Mola, attributed to).
On the original Martelli paper label, this painting
is described by Corvi and Tofanelli as a “Domenicho
Zampieri. Campagna con Figure”. It is possibly
identical with one of the two paintings listed
under “manner of Domenichino” in Fredenheim’s
catalogue and described as landscapes in which
Domenichino specifically painted the figures.¹
The painting was later attributed to Mola by Ann
Sutherland Harris.²

In brushwork, style and composition, the
painting is close to a few of Mola’s landscapes
dated to the artist’s early Roman period when
he fused Venetian, Bolognese and Roman influences
in his work. These include for example the
paintings of the prophets Elisha and Elijah in
the Ringling Museum, Sarasota, which are close
in size to the Nationalmuseum painting.³ Just
like the present painting, these display a typical
light brushwork in the detailed depiction of
gnarled boughs and foliage, as well as a landscape
constituted by clearly defined building blocks of
shrubbery, meadows, flowers and trees, receding
into the background to create a perfect feeling of
perspective. Although in the Nationalmuseum
painting the bushes and trees are crowded around
the figures to a greater extent, we still get a
glimpse of the bluish haze of the horizon, mainly
to the left of the composition, but also to some
degree in the centre, betraying the influence of
Venetian landscape painting on Mola’s work.⁴

The figures, though without question secondary
to the landscape, are rendered in the utmost
detail and are of high quality, perhaps explaining
the attribution of them to Domenichino, one
of Mola’s masters, in Fredenheim’s catalogue.
However, the woman is of a characteristic Mola
type, with a bovine countenance and something
of a slant to her eyes, charmingly peering at her
companions while resting her arms on a rock. The
companions are typical banditti or soldier types
whose poses are quite similar to those found, for
example, in Rosa’s Figure series or for that matter
in several of Mola’s own studies, such as the
drawings related to the painting of the Rest on the
Flight to Egypt in the Hermitage, St Petersburg.⁵
Taken together, the traits exhibited in the rendering
of both figures and landscape all point to a firm
concurrence with Sutherland Harris’s attribution.
dp

1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet
de Martelli (à Rome).
2 NM Archives, Dokumentationsarkivet, “Pier Francesco
Mola”.
3 Cocke 1972b, pp. 19–21, 62, cat. nos. 61–62, pls. 37–38;
Kahn-Rossi, ed. 1989, cat. nos. I.8–I.9.
4 Cocke 1972b, pp. 1–4, 19–21; Sutherland 1964, pp. 363–368.
5 Wallace 1979, pp. 12–36, 135–229, cat. nos. 6–88; Cocke
1972b, p. 47, cat. no. 12, pls. 114–120. [End]

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2010

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