Landscape with an Old Woman Holding a Spindle 1500 - 1564

Domenico Campagnola created this pen and brown ink landscape drawing sometime in the early 16th century. It depicts an expansive landscape, a pastoral scene where an old woman sits with her spindle, surrounded by animals, while a town rises in the distance. During the Renaissance, there was an increased interest in the natural world, but more so, there was a developing fascination for allegories, symbolism and storytelling, as well as the realities of everyday life. Campagnola merges these interests, placing a woman, presumably of lower class, within an idealized landscape. This piece invites us to consider the intersection of labor, gender, and class. The old woman’s presence isn’t merely a compositional element but perhaps a statement on the dignity of labor, or even on the lives of those often overlooked in grand historical narratives. She is literally at the margins of the landscape. Campagnola’s drawing transcends a simple depiction of nature; it’s a reflection on the social fabric of his time, on who is seen, who is not, and how the stories of everyday people fit into the broader landscape of history.