A solitary mature tree drawn in pen and brown ink dominates the entire sheet of paper, the knoll on which it stands the only apparent context. Buffeted by the wind, its verdant branches are caught in motion by a variety of pen strokes comprising different weights of ink which curl and intersect to render the majestic subject. The complex penwork belies the seeming simplicity of the theme.
Annibale Carracci studied the tree directly from nature, first making some preliminary lines in black chalk to set out his composition. Truth to nature was a famed trait of the Carracci family studio in Bologna and their Florentine contemporaries, all rejecting the mannered artifice of the preceding generation. Whether this study of a tree was destined for inclusion in a painting or was made as a work in itself, it represents well the freshness and directness that emerged at the beginning of the seventeenth century and dominated artistic production for the next two centuries.
This influence is laid bare in the storied provenance of this sheet, which was in the two most famous eighteenth-century French collections of art: first, that of the banker Pierre Crozat (1665-1740), where it was admired, studied, and copied by the connoisseur Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774), who eventually acquired it for himself at the posthumous sale of the Crozat collection.
Text: J. Paul Getty Trust, CC BY 4.0.
