Landscape with Buffalo

Long-horned buffalo or oxen are being herded across a desolate stretch of the Roman Campagna. In the center of the scene juts a high outcrop of rock. Overhead, reeling in the dark sky, are some vultures.

The artist has applied the pigments in high impasto, utilizing a palette knife. The surface is further enriched with squiggly indentations made with the end of a brush-handle.

Giovanni Costa, an Italian artist noted for his views of the Campagna, listed in "Quel che Vidi e Quel che Intesi," Trèves, 1927, p. 122, a number of colleagues also drawn to the region including Böcklin, David, Plock, George Mason, Zäner, Lenbach, Wilde, and Charles Coleman as well as Benouville.

This picture is attributed to Benouville on the basis of similarities it exhibits in technique and format to a pair of landscapes belonging to the Heim Gallery, London (1978). The London pictures also show views of the Campagna, one with an aqueduct and the other with a herd of buffalo, and are inscribed with the artist's monogram "J A B" (conjoined) and are identified: "Rome 68" (in red).

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.

Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.