Pier Francesco Cittadini (Milan 1613/1616-Bologna 1681)

Given to Marco Ricci by A.E. Popham (see his inscription on the mount) and sold as such in the 1958 sale of John Skippe’s collection (see provenance), the style and technique of this drawing are in fact characteristic of that of the Bolognese artist Pier Francesco Cittadini. He was trained by Daniele Crespi (see lot 75) and Guido Reni, whose influence can be seen in the artist’s surviving paintings. His drawings often show landscapes dotted with trees, herdsmen and their animals; a group of such drawings can be found in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle. Among those sheets is a Landscape with a goatherd (inv. RCIN 905732; see O. Kurz, Bolognese Drawings of the XVII and XVIII Centuries in the Collectin of her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, London, 1955, no. 171), which shows a similarly idyllic landscape drawn in feathery penwork as in the present sheet.