Italian landscape.

Drawing, black chalk, traces of white chalk, brown wash, 17,5 x 23,8 cm, laid paper, unsigned, attribution on verso in pencil "Nicolas Berghem" (3 sm. repairs on verso, very minor foxing).

The present drawing is striking for its luminous Italian quality and also for its atmospherical soft rendering of perspective. The composition's sense of three-dimensionality is reinforced with darker strokes of chalk and a touch of wash in the foreground, which grow lighter and lighter as the landscape recedes in the background. Attributed on the verso to Nicolaes Berchem (1620-1683), the drawing indeed shows an affinity with other sheets attributed to the Dutch artist. Particularly the restless rendering of the branches on the left foreground can easily be compared to the branchwork in a drawing in black chalk, sold at Christie's, Van Regteren Altena collection sale (10/07/2014, lot 57), "The sleeping shepherds", at the British Museum London (inv. 1836,0811.49) or "River landscape with mountains", at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (inv. 137a).
Ref. https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/6727. - F. Stampfle, De eeuw van Rubens en Rembrandt. 17de-eeuwse Vlaamse en Hollandse tekeningen uit de Pierpont Morgan Library te New York, 1979, no. 99.