Getty Museum

View of a Walled City in a River Landscape

Date

about 1485

Medium

Brown ink, colored washes, gouache with black chalk underdrawing

Culture

German

Department

Drawings

Institution

Getty Museum

In contrast to the loosely defined hills in wash, the draftsman painted the walled town, with its church tower, rooftops, and turreted walls, in bodycolor with great detail and care. Only a darker layer of wash created the road leading up the hill to the open gatehouse on the left. Mere small splotches on the horizon represent trees atop the distant hills. The remains of a larger scene, visible in the lower right corner, show that this hilly river landscape with a complex of buildings once formed part of a more extensive composition. Scholars do not know which medieval city this scene shows, but they believe that it represents a town in the upper Rhine of Germany around 1490.

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