A Mountainous Landscape with two Shepherds, a Shepherdess and Cattle c.1670-75
Oil on panel | 24.2 x 31.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405218
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Berchem (1620-83) was the son and presumably pupil of Pieter Claesz, a Haarlem painter of down-to-earth still lives. He also studied with a variety of artists, including Jan van Goyen, and became a prominent member of the Haarlem artistic community, on one occasion travelling to Germany with fellow townsman, Jacob van Ruisdael. The last decade of his life was spent in Amsterdam. Berchem painted some northern forest landscapes (like the one of the later 1640s in Dulwich Picture Gallery) of a type which this training and milieu might lead one to expect. The majority of his work however is Italianate, either inspired by an undocumented visit to Italy, which can only have occurred between 1651 and 1653, or by exposure to the work of returning Italianates such as Cornelis van Poelenburgh, Pieter van Laer, Jan Both and Jan Asselyn, all of whom were back home by the mid 1640s. A late work from the 1670s, this small, well-preserved panel shows the brilliant variety of Berchem’s paint application: thin on the mountains, the trace of the brush removing paint to suggest the pattern of rocks and foliage, thicker on the clouds and figures. Signed lower left: 'Berchem'
Provenance
Purchased by George IV from Sir Thomas Baring as part of a group of 86 Dutch and Flemish paintings, most of which were collected by Sir Thomas’s father, Sir Francis Baring; they arrived at Carlton House on 6 May 1814; recorded in the Bow Room, Ground Floor, at Carlton House in 1819 (no 111); in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace in 1841 (no 37)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on panel
Measurements
24.2 x 31.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
41.8 x 48.9 x 5.5 cm (frame, external)
Other number(s)