Landscape with River and Mill
Unknown artist
c. 1540
Medium
Pen and brown ink on cream laid paper
Dimensions
18.8 × 28.4 cm (7 7/16 × 11 3/16 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
85770
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
One of only a few examples to survive from the earlier decades of the 16th century, this drawing demonstrates the emerging interest in landscape as a subject independent of narrative or devotional scenes. Although the compositional elements described here seem like those one could observe—a town set in a dell—the manner of their description is stylized, indicating that the scene may have actually come from the artist’s imagination.