Artwork
Corisca, Amarilli and Mirtillo
Corisca, Amarilli and Mirtillo is an ink drawing by the Baroque artist Johann Wilhelm Baur. It dates from 1640 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Overview
Johann Wilhelm Baur, a German artist active in the early seventeenth century, produced the ink drawing *Corisca, Amarilli and Mirtillo* in 1640.
Johann Wilhelm Baur, a German artist active in the early seventeenth century, produced the ink drawing *Corisca, Amarilli and Mirtillo* in 1640. Executed with pen and brown ink, enriched by a brown wash on laid paper, the work captures a brief episode from Giovanni Battista Guarini’s pastoral tragicomedy *Il pastor fido*. The composition presents three figures arranged in a simple, yet expressive, landscape.
Subject & Meaning
The drawing depicts the three central characters of Guarini’s play: Corisca, Amarilli, and Mirtillo. Set in an idealized shepherd’s world, the scene reflects the poem’s themes of love, jealousy, and the tension between appearance and intent. By isolating the figures in a quiet pastoral setting, Baur emphasizes the emotional stakes that drive the narrative’s dramatic confrontations.
Technique & Style
Baur employs fine, controlled lines to model the bodies and suggest the texture of their modest garments. The brown wash adds depth, creating subtle gradations of shadow that give the figures a modest three‑dimensional presence on the laid paper surface. The overall effect is restrained, relying on delicate hatching rather than heavy cross‑hatching, a hallmark of Baur’s miniature drawing practice.
History & Provenance
Created in 1640, the drawing belongs to the period when Baur was also illustrating Ovid’s *Metamorphoses*, indicating his sustained interest in literary subjects. Though the work’s early ownership records are sparse, it has been identified as part of a small corpus of Baur’s narrative drawings that circulated among collectors of German Baroque prints in the mid‑seventeenth century.
Artist & collection
Artist
Johann Wilhelm Baur, Joan Guiliam Bouwer, or Bauer (Strasbourg, 31 May 1607 - Vienna, 1 January 1640) was a German engraver, etcher and miniature painter. He is famous for a series of illustrations of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
