(1560–1609) Follower of, Card players in a landscape, red chalk on paper, 19 x 19 cm, watermark: crowned escutcheon with a cross and eagle wings on two circles, browned, slightly stained, mounted, framed, (Sch)

The present drawing was inspired by a design of Annibale Carracci in the collection of the Louvre (Inv. 7448) which shows six playing figures in a landscape. Our sheet is almost identical with the composition by Annibale; however, the landscape in the background is more ample. The peculiar square format of our drawing is presumably due to a truncation. The drawing in the Louvre which was originally attributed to Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi was finally given to a series with playing figures by Annibale Carracci (Inv.7648, 8374), which were all executed in pen and brown ink and vary the theme with insignificant alterations. An etching by Jean Pesne after a drawing of the series which is kept in the Louvre (Inv. 7448) bears the inscription „An. Carache delin.“ and shows the composition laterally reversed and differs in some detail from the composition. Two other copies after the drawing which, like our drawing, were executed in red chalk are kept in the Devonshire Collection in Chatsworth (Inv. 470, attribution „Follower of Domenichino“) and in the Teylers Museum Haarlem (K. VI. 34).