The authentication of the sculptor Leonardo Bistolfi stamped on the back of the work and accompanied by his signature and the number 61 in pencil suggests that it is one of the large group of paintings found in Lorenzo Delleani’s studio on his death. It was the close friendship and contact between the two artists that prompted the painter’s family to ask Bistolfi to inventory and authenticate all the material. Another work belonging to this group is

, purchased for the Cariplo Collection on the antique market and bearing the same authentication, followed in this case by the number 58 in blue pencil.

Most of the works found in the studio were shown in the posthumous exhibition promoted by the newspaper La Stampa and organized by Enrico Thovez and Leonardo Bistolfi at the Società Promotrice di Belle Arti in Turin from 17 January to 17 February 1909. As it has proved impossible to find a catalogue of the show, in all probability because none was ever published, it cannot be established with any certainty whether the two works in the Cariplo Collection figured among the approximately 200 paintings and studies exhibited.

The date placed by the artist on the bottom edge shows that it was painted in December 1892. Delleani travelled at length in Switzerland during the summer of the same year for study purposes with his friend the poet Giovanni Camerana, an admirer of Antonio Fontanesi, who had encouraged him to abandon history painting and take up landscape from life as early as 1872.

The work presents a view of the Biella countryside, probably in an area near Pollone, Delleani’s hometown. The limited range of colours, just a few shades of brown, shows the influence of the examples of the northern landscape painting that the artist had the opportunity to study during a journey to the Netherlands in 1883. The adoption of a low viewpoint makes the pond in the foreground, wrapped in a broad expanse of shadow, the focal point of the scene, which is delimited by a few cottages and lush vegetation that fades away towards the horizon. While the work bears similarities to the artist’s vast corpus of quick studies from life in terms of its format and sketch-like execution, it is distinguished by its pictorial and expressive quality and intense realism.