Niccolo dell Abbate

Niccolò dell’Abbate painted wide, dreamy landscapes filled with small, graceful figures: hunting parties, lovers and scenes from myth set among rivers, castles and blue distant hills. His way of making the landscape the real subject was new in Italian painting, and it travelled with him to France.

Born in Modena, he absorbed the work of Correggio and Parmigianino and made his name with fresco cycles in Modena, Scandiano and Bologna. In 1552 he moved to France to work at the royal palace of Fontainebleau under Francesco Primaticcio, and he stayed there until his death. He is a key figure of the School of Fontainebleau.

The National Gallery in London holds his Orpheus and Eurydice landscape, and the Louvre has The Rape of Proserpine. His hunting scenes, with riders and hounds strung across a broad valley, show his courtly side.