Italianate Coastal Scene with Fishermen, Encampment (recto); River Estuary (verso)

Pietro da Cortona · 1675/99

Medium

Brush and black and gray wash, with touches of black gouache, over black chalk (recto), and sepia and wash (verso), on cream laid paper

Original size

28.7 × 45.2 cm (11 5/16 × 17 13/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

Sweeping across cream laid paper in brushed washes of black, gray, and sepia, this double-sided drawing captures the quiet rhythms of Mediterranean coastal life with remarkable atmospheric depth. Pietro da Cortona is celebrated above all as a master of the Roman Baroque — his painted ceilings and architectural schemes defined an era — yet his works on paper reveal a more intimate, exploratory side of the same genius. The recto's loose, confident handling of black and gray wash, touched with gouache, shows how fluently he translated observed light and shadow into tonal shorthand. The sepia verso, a river estuary study, demonstrates his habit of using every surface, treating drawing as a continuous act of thinking rather than formal presentation. The dual-sided nature of the sheet is a genuine rarity: both faces have survived in strong condition, giving modern viewers access to two distinct moods within a single object, now preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago's collection. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the atmospheric wash tonality and the gestural energy of Pietro da Cortona's draughtsmanship into paint, bringing the hazy coastal light and the fishermen's encampment to life on a scale that rewards close looking just as the original does.