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Harbour with Ruins Salvator Rosa

Artist

Salvator Rosa Arenella, 1615 – Rome, 1673

Culture Italian
Date ca. 1643–1645
Object type painting
Medium, technique oil on canvas
Dimensions

87.5 × 111 cm

Signature

Signed lower centre: Rosa

Inventory number 535
Collection Old Master Paintings
On view Museum of Fine Arts, First Floor, European Art 1600–1700 and British Painting 1600–1800, Gallery V

Active mostly in Naples and Rome, the artist also spent almost a decade in Florence, where he painted this landscape, along with its pair. One of them leads our eyes away from the port, far across the bay to the distant horizon, while in the other, our view is obstructed by a steep, craggy rock and a majestic tree in full leaf. These are meticulously composed landscapes, although Rosa’s approach to the land differed greatly from the mythical vision of Claude Lorrain, the French master of the ideal landscape. Comparing these two works with the painting by Claude’s Villa in the Roman Campagna, also painted in the 1640s, it becomes apparent that Rosa’s landscapes are more romantic, familiar yet enigmatic settings for the eternal adventure that is human existence.

References

Pigler, Andor, Katalog der Galerie Alter Meister, 1-2. Museum der Bildenden Künste, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest. 2, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1967, p. 390.

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.

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