Landscape with Ladies and Knights

In 1598 the pope took Ferrara from the Este dukes, and paintings from the old ducal city began travelling south to Rome. This canvas probably came in one of those loads, a shipment of 1608 arranged by Enzo Bentivoglio, a Ferrarese nobleman working for Cardinal Scipione Borghese. That route is why the Borghese long listed it as a work by Dosso, the Este court painter.

The scene is a stag hunt watched from the bank. Out in the churning river, men in boats and in the water close in on the animal. Ladies in yellow and pink sit under the trees while a man in red turns towards them with his arm out, and riders on white horses wait by the shore. Across the water the village goes about its day, with nets strung between the trees and a fire glowing in a doorway.