The Ripa Grande, Rome

Pieter Brueghel

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Pieter Brueghel. The drawing is made with thin pen lines, using brown for the background and black for the foreground. The drawing is of a port, with a stretch of river running across the centre of the page. On the far bank a set of steps leads up to a number of large rectangular buildings. On the left there are some barrels on the ground, and someone leading a horse or donkey. Two large boats with masts are docked on the far bank, along with several smaller boats. In the foreground a couple of small rowing boats are on the water. A man is rolling a barrel in the bottom right corner, next to another horse or donkey. A small dog is on a patch of ground in the centre, and two ducks are swimming in the bottom left corner, Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "11. PIETER BRUEGHEL I (b. about 1525; d. 1569) Collection of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G., Chatsworth. Pen and brown ink for the background, black ink for the foreground, 20.8 x 28.3 cm. (8 3/16 x 11 1/8 in.). This drawing, apart from its obvious intrinsic merit, is interesting as one of the earliest by the elder Pieter Brueghel to which a date can be assigned, belonging as it must to the period of the artist's stay in Rome in 1553. The old attribution to Jan Brueghel, in view of the execution in different coloured inks, a device favoured by the latter, is intelligible, but the genuine signature and the inscription 'a rÿpa' are unmistakably the elder Brueghel's, as well as, on a closer scrutiny, the drawing itself. The 'Ripa Grande', the port of Rome, is seen from a point on the opposite bank of the Tiber at the foot of the Aventine, the Marmorata. The building on the right with the flight of steps leading up to it is the Dogana, while the campanile which appears more to the left is that of Leo IV. [Published by Hermann Egger, Römische Veduten, Vienna, 1911, Tafel 70, and by him attributed to Pieter Brueghel I. Illustrated by M. J. Friedländer, Pieter Brueghel, Berlin, 1921, Fig. 23, and by Karl Tolnai, Die Zeichnungen Pieter Brueghels, Munich, 1925, Tafel 3.]"