Pen and brown ink, brown wash, laid paper, 225 x 355 mm. Mounted on collection sheet by upper corners. Paper backed by additional sheet, sm. hole at lower right, stain at upper right, trimmed well outside framing lines
With the sun at its highest point in this village landscape, an equestrian figure approaches a small bridge, covering a small river. The vista opens in the background where we overlook the sea and an a harbor town. This harmonious scene has been attributed to the Antwerp artist Peeter (or Pieter) Baltens, according to later Italian 17th-c. inscription on the album sheet (""Del Pietro Baltens d'Anversa""). Together with Hans Bol, Baltens was one of the earliest followers of the landscapes of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Although the present sheet lacks some of the refined detail (e.g. in the leafs) and spontaneity often present in drawings attributed to Baltens, its rendering technique with brown washes, as fits well within the Antwerp followers of Bruegel of the second half of the sixteenth century
