As its title suggests, Head of a Cow in the Art Properties collection portrays a large cow head, whose features are delicately captured in black chalk and white highlights applied on paper roughly prepared with gray gouache (Fig.1, 2, 3).1The head occupies almost the entire surface of the paper, whose irregular edges show signs of tears and repairs with glued patches of paper at the bottom. The positioning of the head may indicate a lack of planning on the part of the draughtsman, as there is no room for the completion of the horns. The left part of the animal’s head—except for the ear which is left unfinished—is the most carefully drawn, with particular attention paid to the eye. Its downward, focused stare is rendered through subtle gradations of black chalk, while the eyelashes are showcased through a combination of fine chalk lines and thick white highlights. In contrast, the right side of the head is less detailed. To the right of the incomplete ear, one can discern a rough sketch of three fingers of a hand holding a bovine’s ear. Overall, the drawing reveals a high degree of observation of the cow’s physiognomy, from the skillfully articulated topography of its cheek to the fine and varied rendering of the hair on the muzzle and forehead, giving the animal a dignified presence. Head of a Cow is currently attributed to the eighteenth-century Italian artist Francesco Londonio. Most likely a preparatory study for a print, it epitomizes one of the artist’s favorite subjects: farm animals.

Francesco Londonio (1723–1783) was born to a noble family in Milan, Lombardy, the fourth child of seven siblings. The Londonio family history can be traced back to the late sixteenth century, when they moved from Spain to Italy by orders of the Spanish Crown.2Subjects of country life and animals interested Londonio as early as the 1740s, when he began his artistic career. His persistent predilection for pastoral subjects is reflected across the different media he worked with—drawing, oil paint, and etching—and his art seduced wealthy elite patrons such as Alberico XII di Belgiojoso d'Este and Ferdinand Karl, Archduke of Austria-Este and Governor of the Duchy of Milan.3His skill and passion for pastoral scenes culminated in late works from the 1770s-80s involving nativity scenes drawn on paper, then cut out and painted with tempera, dedicated to the Count of Milan Giacomo Mellerio.4These scenes show Londonio’s virtuoso ability to adapt pastoral subjects to traditional religious subjects, as well as his life commitment to portray animals and peasants.

As a young man, Londonio took apprenticeship under the Milanese painters Ferdinando Porta (1689–1767) and Gianbattista Sassi (1679–1762), while in 1758, he began to learn the techniques of etching under the guidance of Benigno Bossi (1727–1800?), an artist based in Parma; therefore, all of Londonio’s prints can be dated after the year 1758. Besides the local Lombardian influence, Londonio traveled to Rome in 1762–63 and to Naples in 1763–65, where he encountered Northern European art, especially German and Flemish landscape painting and other pastoral subjects in private collections of local aristocrats.5His time in Rome and Naples was significant for his career, as one observes an increase in the size and in the complexity of the compositions of his etchings. For example, when comparing the dated etchings in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, it is evident that the works from 1758–59 are generally smaller than those from 1762–65. The 1760s were also a period during which Londonio experimented outside the pastoral. Again at the Ambrosiana, one finds drawings signed and dated from the Naples years that depict urban architecture and coastal landscapes.6

Londonio was extremely prolific as a printmaker and large quantities of his etchings can be found both in public collections in Lombardy and in private collections worldwide. For example, public libraries in Milan including the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana (the art collection housed within the Biblioteca Ambrosiana) holds more than 450 of his works. Another major Milanese public institution, the Pinacoteca di Brera, owns about 60. Among the prominent private organizations, the Museum of Castello Sforzesco in Milan has approximately 20 works, while the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owns more than 80 etchings. These figures speak to the efficient production of Londonio’s workshop and to his own ability as a commercial artist. Written evidence has also suggested that his works were collected and cherished by his family after his passing. For instance, according to an unsent letter, at least two paintings, some engravings, and framed small drawings by Londonio appeared in the inventory of Carlo Giuseppe Londonio (1780-1845), a distant relative of the painter.7

To date, two catalogues of Londonio’s works have been published, respectively in 1994 and 1998, both featuring exclusively his etchings.8Unfortunately, the lack of scholarship on his paintings and drawings has hindered our understanding of his larger oeuvre, but a close study of Head of a Cow and other selected drawings is an opportunity to know better his work as a practitioner of rigorous studies.9Two drawings attributed to Londonio are kept at The Met. Both are roughly the same size as Head of a Cow and are on brown paper. One of them, Reclining Sheep in a Landscape (Fig. 4), offers a productive comparison to Head of a Cow. In this drawing, Londonio depicts several groups of resting sheep from different vantage points: across the upper register, a close-up of six sheep are drawn with a high degree of precision, in comparison to the other sheep scattered across the lower register viewed from different distances, some of them barely outlined. As in Head of a Cow, the artist did not include any background, instead focusing on the form of the sheep’s bodies, the depth of their gazes, and the texture of their fur, rendered through gentle strokes of black chalk and white highlights. However, as the sheep fade in the distance, the artist uses less and less white, and the chalk marks fade as well. Head of a Cow and Reclining Sheep in a Landscape are two erudite studies of animals, combining preliminary explorations expressed through doodling with extremely detailed areas anticipating the high level of precision found in the etchings.

Another study attributed to Londonio representing a single cow, titled Cow to the Left (Fig. 5), compares well to Head of a Cow. A relatively small work on brownish-green paper now in the collection of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, it involves chalk, a limited amount of white highlights, and gray wash. Hay and grass are lightly sketched. The cow is unfinished as the back legs are not depicted. The visual focus, similar to the Art Properties drawing, is the eye of the cow. Furthermore, the curled ear is stylistically close to the doodled ear in the Art Properties drawing. Drawings of single cows, however, are not common in Londonio’s oeuvre, making the Städel drawing particularly relevant to the Art Properties one.10An in-person study of the Städel drawing, focusing on the properties of its paper and the techniques used, would be necessary to assess fully its similarity to Head of a Cow. The date of these cow drawings  during Londonio’s long artistic career remain open questions. Head of a Cow, alongside the other preparatory drawings for oil paintings and etchings discussed here, exemplify Londonio’s dedication to the Northern Italian pastoral genre. These drawings also show the authentic hand of the artist and his compositional work toward etchings and oil paintings that, to date, have not come to light.

• 1Dr. Linda Wolk-Simon confirmed that the paper was prepared on her class visit on February 3, 2023.
• 2Roberta J. M. Olson, “Francesco Londonio,” in Monica Scola ed., Print Quarterly 13:1 (1996), 73.
• 3Marco Bona Castellotti and Cristina Geddo, Francesco Londonio (1723-1783) (Milano: Piva & C, 1998).
• 4Alessia Devitini, Nadia Righi, and Francesco Londonio, Francesco Londonio: Il Presepe Di Carta (Cinisello Balsamo, Milano: Silvana editoriale, 2021).
• 5Monica Scola, Catalogo Ragionato Delle Incisioni Di Francesco Londonio (Milano: Edi.Artes, 1994).
• 6I disegni della Biblioteca Ambrosiana, cat. (Milan: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Notre Dame: The Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame: online). https://digital-exhibits.library.nd.edu/2d498adc70/inventory-catalog-of-the-drawings-in-the-biblioteca-ambrosiana
• 7Cristina Geddo, Biographical Dictionary of Italians Volume 65 (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 2005).
• 8Marco Bona Castellotti and Cristina Geddo, Francesco Londonio (1723-1783) (Milano: Piva & C, 1998);Monica Scola, Catalogo Ragionato Delle Incisioni Di Francesco Londonio (Milano: Edi.Artes, 1994).
• 9Jacob Bean, “Ninety-sixth Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year 1965-1966, Reports of the Departments: Drawings,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 25 (New York, 1966), 75; —, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Annual Report for the Year 2013-2014 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications, 2014), 34.
• 10Lina Böhm, “Pittori Milanesi Del Settecento: Francesco Londonio (Con 9 Illustrazioni),” Rivista d'Arte 16: 3 (1934), 228-61.