Flowering Bush above an Eroded Bank (c. 1572–1604): Art, History and Details

Flowering Bush above an Eroded Bank (c. 1572–1604) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Federico Barocci (Italian, 1528–1612).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Federico Barocci, who worked in Urbino, made landscape sketches for use in his paintings and as independent studies. The artist’s multimedia approach—combining chalks, ink washes, and opaque paints—was novel at the time but would become standard practice for landscape artists working in later centuries. Novel, as well, was his interest in excerpts of the natural world rather than fully realized scenes. Here, the artist drew an eroded bank with a few bold lines in black chalk, then used a brush to layer brown and white ink washes, capturing the untamed clump of earth with remarkable naturalism.

Object facts

• Title: Flowering Bush above an Eroded Bank
• Date: c. 1572–1604
• Creator attribution: Federico Barocci (Italian, 1528–1612)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black chalk, brush and brown wash, and lead white (partially oxidized), with traces of red chalk
• Dimensions: Sheet: 20 x 13.2 cm (7 7/8 x 5 3/16 in.); Secondary Support: 30.4 x 22.9 cm (11 15/16 x 9 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1973.171

A detail from the museum

This drawing is believed to have once been in the collection of two brothers who were considered the premier academic painters in 19th-century Rome.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Olszewski, Edward J., and Jane Glaubinger. The Draftsman's Eye: Late Italian Renaissance Schools and Styles. Cleveland: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with the Indiana University Press, 1981.
• Bunzl, Yvonne Tan, Faerber & Maison, exhibition and sale catalogue, April 6-25, 1970.
• “The Year in Review for 1973.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (February 1974): 31–78. Published as: Study of Plants on a Bank

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.