Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill

Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill — Fra Bartolomeo. c. 1508.

Medium: pen and brown ink. Dimensions: Sheet: 22.3 x 29.4 cm (8 3/4 x 11 9/16 in.); Secondary Support: 27.5 x 41.2 cm (10 13/16 x 16 1/4 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

This is a significant early example of pure landscape drawing in Europe, as it is dedicated completely to the depiction of nature for its own sake, without suggestion of a biblical or historical narrative. The rapidity and regularity of strokes used for the evergreen and deciduous trees and the sweeping lines in the foreground suggest that the landscape in Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill was made directly from nature. The sheet comes from an album of 41 landscape studies by Fra Bartolommeo assembled by an eighteenth-century collector and disbound for sale in the mid-20th century. A member of the Dominican Order, Fra Bartolomeo likely produced these drawings during his travels in and around Florence, often to Dominican establishments.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.