Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009745Ruins in a Rocky Landscape
About the Artwork
In 1635, Rosa left his native Naples for Rome, the undisputed art center of the 17th century, where a new type of landscape painting was emerging, distinguished by the effects of light and atmosphere. Rosa’s fame grew quickly as a painter of landscapes that conjured the beauty and fertility of the Bay of Naples. Ruins in a Rocky Landscape incorporates classical ruins, iridescent reflections of light, and a pastoral tone evoked by the idling shepherds, exemplifying the work that earned Rosa his early fame. The dark, dramatic rocks that rise along the left foreshadow the wildness that Rosa would cultivate in his later sublime landscapes.
Inscriptions
Signed lower right: "SR [monogram]"
Provenance
Duke Francesco I d’Este, Modena; Duke Francesco V d’Este, Modena and Vienna: Duke Francis Ferdinand, Vienna; Maximillian, Duke of Hohenberg, Palace of the Prince of Liechtenstein, Vienna; Rosenberg & Stiebel (New York, New York), by gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
Exhibition history
Baroque Imagery. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 6, 1984-January 6, 1985). Disegni da una grande collezione. Maestri italiani dal XV al XVII secolo delle antiche raccolte estensi di Modena. Palazzo Ducale di Sassuolo (September 12-November 30, 1998). Painting the Italian Landscape: Views from the Uffizi. Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH (organizer) (June 13-October 19, 2008). Landscape Painting in Rome, 1600-1650. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 75008 Paris, France (March 8-June 6, 2011); Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain (June 27-September 25, 2011). The Novel and the Bizarre: Salvator Rosa’s Scenes of Witchcraft. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 15-June 14, 2015).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1615–1673)
- Date
- c. 1640
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 157.5 x 189.2 x 7 cm (62 x 74 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 144 x 176.7 cm (56 11/16 x 69 9/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of Rosenberg & Stiebel, Inc.
- Accession no.
- 1958.472
More by Salvator Rosa in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009745
Powered by Art Trackers