(Rome 1634–1689)
Landscape with fishermen and two women in an oval, black chalk on laid paper, fixed to an old support, inscribed „Pietro da Cortona” on cardboard support in pen and brown ink, 26,4 x 18,4 cm, browned, somewhat stained, mounted, unframed, (Sch)

Provenance:
Collection Giancarlo Sestieri, Rome.

The present drawing can be dated after 1670 on the basis of stylistic features which speak for the later period of Ciro Ferri. The oval format and the position of the figures against the landscape recall the atmospheric composition of his fresco “Triumph of Flora” (1668-1670) in the Villa Falconieri in Frascati. The Albertina preserves a preliminary oval drawing in black chalk for the fresco (35,1 x 26,3 cm; Inv. 25048). The two female figures in the background of the drawing recall the paintings with muses in the Sala di Apollo in the Palazzo Pitti, even though the preliminary drawings for this project differ stylistically and technically from the present design. Even though the theme of the present sheet cannot be ascribed to a certain project of the artist, the oval format of the composition and the landscape background may point to the assumption that the design may have been created for a painting or a fresco briefly after finishing the works in the Villa Falconieri in 1670.

The attribution to Ciro Ferri was confirmed by Maria Cristina Paoluzzi after an examination of the original. We are also grateful to Prof. Jörg Martin Merz who independently confirmed the attribution to Ferri from the original.