Landscape with Buffalo

Long-horned buffalo or oxen are being herded across a desolate stretch of the Roman Campagna. In the center of the scene juts a high outcrop of rock. Overhead, reeling in the dark sky, are some vultures.

The artist has applied the pigments in high impasto, utilizing a palette knife. The surface is further enriched with squiggly indentations made with the end of a brush-handle.

Giovanni Costa, an Italian artist noted for his views of the Campagna, listed in "Quel che Vidi e Quel che Intesi," Trèves, 1927, p. 122, a number of colleagues also drawn to the region including B├╢cklin, David, Plock, George Mason, Zäner, Lenbach, Wilde, and Charles Coleman as well as Benouville.

This picture is attributed to Benouville on the basis of similarities it exhibits in technique and format to a pair of landscapes belonging to the Heim Gallery, London (1978). The London pictures also show views of the Campagna, one with an aqueduct and the other with a herd of buffalo, and are inscribed with the artist's monogram "J A B" (conjoined) and are identified: "Rome 68" (in red).