Barking Dog 1593 - 1596

drawing

amateur sketch

toned paper

light pencil work

pencil sketch

incomplete sketchy

ink drawing experimentation

underpainting

detailed observational sketch

watercolour illustration

italy

watercolor

"Barking Dog" is a preparatory drawing executed by Francesco Vanni, a prominent Italian Mannerist painter, between 1593 and 1596. This small-scale drawing, measuring just 4 1/4 x 5 3/16 in., depicts a dog in motion, its head turned, as if barking, captured with remarkable detail and dynamicism. Vanni's masterful use of graphite creates a sense of energy and immediacy, suggesting the artist's focus on capturing the essence of animal movement. This drawing, currently housed in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, offers insight into Vanni's artistic process, showcasing his ability to capture animal anatomy and expression with striking precision.

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minneapolisinstituteofart about 1 year ago

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While drawing connoisseurship can seem dangerously subjective to the uninitiated, quite often consensus is found among various experts. When this drawing entered the collection, it was miscatalogued as a study by the Dutch artist Cornelis Saftleven. Three drawings connoisseurs independently suggested this fragmentary, quick sketch of a barking dog was executed by a Sienese artist around 1600. It was the scholar John Marciari who identified the artist as Francesco Vanni, recognizing the dog from Vanni's impressive mural Saint Catherine Exorcising a Demon of 1593-96, in the church of San Domenico in Siena, where its appears prominently in the central foreground of the painting. The dog is barking madly at the woman possessed by demons, who flails on a parapet above him to the right. He is shown from the identical viewpoint, and in the same pose as the drawing, with his muzzle raised, teeth showing, tail upright, front legs crouched, and front paws not visible. In the final painting, the dog's left hindleg is obscured by the forearm of a figure, and the exacting description of the dog's private parts, not suprisingly, is omitted.