Antonio Marini Prato 1788 - Firenze 1861

Until the 1980s much of Marini's œuvre remained mis-attributed to other artists, in most cases to Marco Ricci, and it is with thanks to Egidio Martini and to the monograph compiled by Laura Muti and Daniele de Sarno Prignano in 1991, that today we have a far clearer understanding of the artist's work. This painting is typical of his hostile landscapes, and employs his characteristically limited range of colour and the energetic brushwork he had learnt from Salvator Rosa; compare, for example, two other cascade landscapes by Marini in Leeds, Temple Newsam House, inv. no. 22.85/48, and in a Venetian private collection (see L. Muti & D. de Sarno Prignano, Antonio Marini, Rimini 1991, pp. 173-4, cat. nos. 22 and 23, both reproduced).