Fighting Horsemen

The virtuoso draftsman Luca Cambiaso was the leading artist of 16th-century Genoa. He was so prolific that his wife and his servant reportedly stoked the fire with his drawings. Even so, thousands of studies by his hand survive, more than by any other Renaissance artist. This sketch exhibits Cambiaso’s trademark cubic simplification of forms—in the heads, arms, and legs of the riders—and distinctive swift handling and lively pen lines. His inventive figural vocabulary and imaginative compositions inspired hundreds of imitators, making it difficult to distinguish his drawings from those of his followers. The watermark on this sheet locates the paper in or near Cambiaso’s studio.