Landscape with the Holy Family (Rest on the Flight into Egypt) Alessandro Algardi, and Giovanni Francesco Grimaldiabout 1650

Landscape with the Holy Family (Rest on the Flight into Egypt)
Alessandro Algardi, and Giovanni Francesco Grimaldiabout 1650
From the collection of
The J. Paul Getty Museum
Two contemporary Bolognese draftsmen worked at different times on this unique drawing. Sculptor Alessandro Algardi added the figures after painter Francesco Grimaldi had created the landscape. By inserting the Holy Family, which fits so naturally into the composition, the elder Algardi may have meant to improve his junior colleague's composition. The figural group balances the central tree and gives the landscape a recognizable subject matter. To achieve greater luster, Algardi also may have added the brown wash throughout.

The artists' styles are distinctive. Algardi drew his playful family grouping with a more delicate, graceful, even fragile line than Grimaldi's bold squiggles and hatching, which are especially evident in the dynamic, dominant tree.

These two artists often worked together on architectural commissions, yet only one other similar sheet exists, an architectural drawing in which Algardi corrected and added to Grimaldi's work. This drawing could have been made in preparation for Grimaldi's etching of the same subject.
Details
Title: Landscape with the Holy Family (Rest on the Flight into Egypt)
Creator: Alessandro Algardi, and Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Date: about 1650
Physical Dimensions: 36.5 x 26.4 cm (14 3/8 x 10 3/8 in.)
External Link: Find out more about this object on the Museum website.
Medium: Pen and brown ink with brown wash
Source Credit Line: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Object Type: Drawing
Object Status: Permanent Collection
Number: 94.GA.78
Markings: Markings: Marked at bottom edge, unidentified collector's mark "TC".
Display Location: Not currently on view
Department: Drawings
Culture: Italian
Classification: Drawings

The J. Paul Getty Museum
Los Angeles, United States

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The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa in Malibu features Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities presented in a setting modeled after a first-century Roman country house, the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, Italy.

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Alessandro Algardi
Jul 31, 1598 - Jun 10, 1654

Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome, where for the latter decades of his life, he was, along with Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the major rivals of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
http://hisour.com/art-medium/drawings/landscape-with-the-holy-family-rest-on-the-flight-into-egypt-alessandro-algardi-and-giovanni-francesco-grimaldiabout-1650/