Jusepe de Ribera, lo Spagnoletto (Valencia 1591-1652 Naples)

With the aid of few figural elements, Ribera created a scene charged with suspense and humour. This hunting scene shows a woman in profile, possibly a servant, standing behind a huntsman and his dog, silently pointing his musket at two sitting pigeons. Partly obscured by trees at the left, a second huntsman has just shot his bullets at the same birds. The sheet relates to other hunting or wild life scenes by the artist, like the Man dragging a deer carcass, in the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, Rome (inv. FC 124844), also swiftly executed in pen and ink. The figures’ arrangement on the page further recalls a key work executed by Ribera in the 1630s, Beggars in the Museo Civico, Bassano del Grappa (inv. 529), which features a man in profile standing beside others seated in a group (see Finaldi, op. cit., no. 131, ill.). Often highlighted in the literature on Ribera’s genre drawings is its connection with the graphic work of Guercino and his humorous approach to low-life subjects. A fascination that is further supported by the drawing on the verso of the present work, a caricature of a cleric, roughly sketched beside a profile of a woman’s head.