The Old Shepherd

The state catalogue dates this canvas 1887 to 1914. The signature on the picture, in pen at the lower left, says GRUBICY 1888. Both are true in their way, because Vittore Grubicy kept his pictures in the studio and went back into them for years afterwards, adding more threads of divided colour, so a finishing date meant very little to him. The shepherd, his sheep and his cattle were painted in the Valle di Scalve, in the mountains above Bergamo, in thin separated strokes of pure tone set side by side for the eye to mix at a distance. When the picture came into the Florentine collection it was valued at 5,000 lire. The old record carries a second title for it as well, Pastore antico, the ancient shepherd.