How you can use this image
This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).
Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.
The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
Buy a print or image licence
You can purchase this reproduction
If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
Renowned for his originality and inventiveness, Piero di Cosimo painted many 'spalliera' panels with themes from classical literature. Dating from c.1505, this painting may have been one of a series described by Vasari as painted for Francesco del Pugliese. Two other panels of 'The Hunt' and 'The Return from the Hunt', now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, are thematically related but seem to have been painted in the 1490s. All three are concerned with the history of early man, inspired by passages from Book 5 of 'De Rerum Natura' by Lucretius (98 BC–c.55 BC), who traces the origins of life on earth and the birth of community life, emphasising the role of fire as a catalyst for change. The New York pendants vividly depict a primitive world, while this painting could have been made for a different patron, taking up particular themes relating to more advanced stages of human life.
Title
The Forest Fire
Date
c. 1505
Medium
oil on panel
Measurements
H 71.2 x W 202 cm
Accession number
WA1933.2
Acquisition method
Presented by the Art Fund, 1933
Work type
Painting
