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Lot Essay
The rider in the foreground here, dressed in black and atop a humble mule, is the distinguishing feature that led Alessandro Ballarin to link this work with a painting in the inventory of Cesare Ignazio d’Este (loc. cit.). The unnumbered inventory, compiled in 1685, records 'Un paese de' Dossi con un uomo vestito a nero sopra di una mula senza cornice, alto on. 20 largo on. 28' ('a landscape by Dossi with a man dressed in black upon a mule with no frame, 20 oncie tall 28 oncie wide'). The description is a compelling match for the present subject and the dimensions, which translate to roughly 86 x 120 cm., are not dissimilar.
Cesare Ignazio d’Este (1653-1713) was a descendent of Alfonso I d’Este (1474-1534), Duke of Ferrara, by whom Dosso was employed from 1514, having moved to Ferrara the previous year. Though he never worked exclusively for Alfonso, Dosso executed significant commissions for the duke, including a frieze and other canvases for his much celebrated studiolo within the camerini del alabastro linking Castello Estense to the Palazzo Ducale (see A. Ballarin, Il camerino delle pitture di Alfonso I, Padua, 2002). This painting presumably belonged to Alfonso and remained in the Este collection passed down to Cesare Ignazio.
Knowing this painting only from black and white photographs, Ballarin published it in 1995 as by the artist’s brother, Battista Dossi, but amended the attribution, restoring it to Dosso Dossi’s oeuvre in a private communication in 2016 (offered Sotheby's, New York, 29 January 2016, lot 450). Ballarin dates this canvas to 1518-19 and notes its stylistic affinity with the artist’s Georgionesque The Three Ages of Man, of 1517-18 (fig. 1; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), particularly in the figure types, palate and handling of the lush foliage. The rider in the present canvas is also reminiscent of the figure group in The Walk in the Woods of a similar date, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon (see A. Ballarin, op. cit., I, p. 311, no. 369; II, fig. 485). In a private communication at the time of the 2016 Sotheby’s sale, Ballarin noted the ranging landscape in the present painting, extending to a cityscape in the far distance, which was an unusual inclusion for the artist.
Cesare Ignazio d’Este (1653-1713) was a descendent of Alfonso I d’Este (1474-1534), Duke of Ferrara, by whom Dosso was employed from 1514, having moved to Ferrara the previous year. Though he never worked exclusively for Alfonso, Dosso executed significant commissions for the duke, including a frieze and other canvases for his much celebrated studiolo within the camerini del alabastro linking Castello Estense to the Palazzo Ducale (see A. Ballarin, Il camerino delle pitture di Alfonso I, Padua, 2002). This painting presumably belonged to Alfonso and remained in the Este collection passed down to Cesare Ignazio.
Knowing this painting only from black and white photographs, Ballarin published it in 1995 as by the artist’s brother, Battista Dossi, but amended the attribution, restoring it to Dosso Dossi’s oeuvre in a private communication in 2016 (offered Sotheby's, New York, 29 January 2016, lot 450). Ballarin dates this canvas to 1518-19 and notes its stylistic affinity with the artist’s Georgionesque The Three Ages of Man, of 1517-18 (fig. 1; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), particularly in the figure types, palate and handling of the lush foliage. The rider in the present canvas is also reminiscent of the figure group in The Walk in the Woods of a similar date, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon (see A. Ballarin, op. cit., I, p. 311, no. 369; II, fig. 485). In a private communication at the time of the 2016 Sotheby’s sale, Ballarin noted the ranging landscape in the present painting, extending to a cityscape in the far distance, which was an unusual inclusion for the artist.