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Bonzi, Pietro Paolo
River landscape with Tobias and the Angel Paysage de rivière avec Tobie et l’ange
n. d. date inconnue

Pietro Paolo Bonzi was an Italian painter and printmaker who left Cortona for Rome around the mid-1590s to study with Giovanni Battista Viola, a member of the Carracci circle who specialized in landscape painting. In his paintings, Bonzi often included trees and bushes in the middle ground to provide a layer of delicately textured tone and usually conveyed tree stumps or dead trees as accents in the foreground. These motifs also form part of his etching, River landscape with Tobias and the Angel. An assortment of trees of various shapes and sizes populate the background of this print. Moreover, a long horizontal tree cuts across the picture plane near the bottom third of the composition, calling attention to the figures of Tobias and the angel walking along the dirt path at the edge of the river. The angel, with a staff in hand and wings flapping in the wind, holds onto Tobias’s left hand, serving as his guide through the hazardous landscape. The youthful Tobias carries a fish in his right hand, which he caught in the river moments before. Both figures look to the right, from whence they came.

Bonzi, Pietro Paolo
Cortona, Italy around 1576-Rome, Italy around 1636 Cortona, Italy around 1576-Rome, Italy around 1636
River landscape with Tobias and the Angel Paysage de rivière avec Tobie et l’ange
n. d. date inconnue
Etching, state 1 of 1 Eau-forte, état unique
overall: 15.2 cm x 22.8 cm
Purchase, Bader Acquisition Fund, 2010 Achat, Fonds d’acquisition Bader, 2010
53-046.005

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