Giuseppe Bernardino BISON - Three Figures in a Moonlit Landscape

Period	18th/19th century
Origin	Italy
Medium	Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over a black chalk underdrawing
Dimensions	21.7 x 29.4 cm (8¹/₂ x 11⁵/₈ inches)
Gallery	Stephen Ongpin Fine Art

Description
Technical

As a draughtsman, Bison’s preferred medium was pen and ink, usually combined with rich tonal washes, of which this drawing is a particularly fine example. In its bold and spirited use of brown washes to depict the night sky, the present sheet may be compared with such drawings as A Goddess on her Chariot in an Italian private collection.

Moonlit scenes are, nevertheless, somewhat unusual in Bison’s drawn oeuvre. Another such example is a Landscape with Monumental Sculptures in a Park in the Cleveland Museum of Art, which has been tentatively related to Bison’s set designs for a production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan in 1842.

Period: 18th/19th century
Origin: Italy
Medium: Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over a black chalk underdrawing
Signature: Signed(?) with a monogram B on the verso.
Further inscribed 'acheté salle de ventes Fievez à Bruxelles 1919 / signature F. Goya / Goya y Lucientès (François) 1746-1828'. on the verso.
Further inscribed 'contrebandiers dans le montagne' on the verso.

Dimensions: 21.7 x 29.4 cm (8¹/₂ x 11⁵/₈ inches)
Provenance: Anonymous sale, Brussels, Joseph Fiévez, in 1919 (according to an inscription on the verso)
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby’s, 9 July 2003, lot 67
Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd., in 2004
Private collection, Madrid.

Exhibitions: New York and London, Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd., Master Drawings and Oil Sketches, 2004, no.47.

Categories: Paintings, Drawings & Prints