Shepherds in a Landscape (c. 1517): Art, History and Details

Shepherds in a Landscape (c. 1517) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giulio Campagnola (Italian, 1482–1515); Domenico Campagnola (Italian, 1500–1564).

The work and its context

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

This depiction of a group of shepherds seated in a landscape is a pictorial manifestation of Arcadia. Two different artists completed the composition—the son (Domenico) of the original artist (Giulio) added the shepherds playing instruments to his father’s landscape— and their distinctive styles can be observed on the right and left sides. Such “pastoral concerts” posed contrasts between urban and pastoral worlds. The spatial layout of this image is ambiguous, offering less a natural experience of landscape than an atmospheric, constructed space full of delicate surfaces, patterns, and lines.

Object facts

• Title: Shepherds in a Landscape
• Date: c. 1517
• Creator attribution: Giulio Campagnola (Italian, 1482–1515); Domenico Campagnola (Italian, 1500–1564)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1948.12

A detail from the museum

This composition was begun by Giulio Campagnola, who made the landscape, and finished by his son, Domenico, who completed the figures.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry S., "Shepherds in a Landscape by Giulio and Domenico Campagnola," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art Vol. 35, No. 3 (March, 1948): 48-49.
• Francis, Henry Sayles. Venetian Tradition: Catalogue of the Exhibition. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1956.

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.