Landscape with a Luteplayer
Medium
Etching on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 34.3 × 47 cm (13 9/16 × 18 9/16 in.); Sheet: 34.7 × 47.3 cm (13 11/16 × 18 5/8 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
109896
Art Historical Context
In the serene *Landscape with a Lute*, created in 1627 by Italian artist Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi1606–1680), also known as "Il Bnese," we encounter a harmonious pastoral scene etched with delicate precision. Grimaldi, a prominent Baroque figure active in Rome, specialized in evocative landscapes that blended classical ideals with natural beauty, drawing influence from masters like Annibale Carracci. This work, housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints Drawings Department, captures a lute player amid rolling hills and foliage, evoking the leisurely pursuits of 17th-century Italian coun...
About the Artist
Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi · 1606–1680
Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi (1606–1680), known as "Il Bolognese," was an Italian painter, draughtsman, and etcher whose career exemplifies the wide influence of the Bolognese school of landscape painting in seventeenth-century Rome. Born in Bologna, Grimaldi trained in the tradition of the Carracci, whose idealized approach to landscape — blending careful observation of nature with classical compo...