Workshop of Antonio Francesco Peruzzini (Ancona, 1643 or 1646 – Milan, 1724), Landscape with Figures

Workshop of Antonio Francesco Peruzzini (Ancona, 1643 or 1646 – Milan, 1724)

Landscape with figures

Oil on canvas, 47 x 62 cm

Landscape with Figures is a painting attributable to the workshop of Antonio Francesco Peruzzini, one of the protagonists of landscape painting between the end of the seventeenth century and the first decades of the eighteenth century. The work features a large and complex composition, dominated by a large tree that frames the scene and leads the gaze towards a bright horizon crossed by frayed clouds. In the foreground, immersed in the shade of the vegetation, we can recognize small figures of shepherds and wayfarers, variously posed around the bank of a river. The compositional structure shows close affinities with Antonio Francesco Peruzzini's Landscape with Rustic House, now at the Villa Giannettino Luxoro in Genoa, both in terms of the organization of the spaces and the relationship between nature and human presence. Here too, the figure is a subordinate element, almost absorbed by the surrounding environment, according to a conception of the landscape that privileges the expressive power of nature over narration. The tree masses, constructed with an energetic and scratched brush, define deep depressions in the ground, while the trunks are enlivened by small light touches in the areas hit by the light, a recurring feature in Peruzzini's pictorial lexicon. The figures, small and sinewy, strongly recall the models of Alessandro Magnasco, so much so that some critics do not exclude his direct intervention, especially in light of Magnasco's documented presence in Florence from 1703, coinciding with Peruzzini's arrival. In those same years, the Tuscan city also saw the activity of Marco and Sebastiano Ricci, with whom Peruzzini shared chromatic affinities and a common propensity for vibrant atmospheric effects. The difficulty in distinguishing the different hands reflects a widespread collaborative practice, which characterizes much of the Ancona master's production. From a stylistic point of view, the painting presents elements typical of Peruzzini's mature phase: the clouds with frayed edges, the rapid and incisive strokes, the predilection for rustic or ruined architecture barely hinted at in the background, and the tendency to make inhabited centers disappear into the distance. These motifs recur in works dating from the last decade of the 17th century to the first decade of the 16th century, a period to which this painting can also likely be assigned, in analogy with works such as The Temptations of Saint Anthony the Abbot and the landscapes created in collaboration with Magnasco. The canvas fits perfectly into the production of Peruzzini's workshop, a painter who grew up in a family environment devoted to art and was active in numerous Italian cities, from Rome to Bologna, from Milan to Medici Tuscany. Throughout his career he frequently worked in collaboration with other artists, entrusting the execution of the figures to specialized painters, a practice that often makes it difficult to accurately attribute the individual parts. This Landscape with Figures effectively testifies to this dynamic: a work in which the evocative power of nature, the refined construction of light and the vitality of human presences blend into a shared language, the expression of a pictorial season marked by the continuous dialogue between multiple artistic personalities.