Animals and Figures in a Landscape c.1650-1750
Oil on canvas | 52.5 x 66.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405632
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A pastoral scene: in the centre foreground a woman, seen from the back, is milking a goat. To her left a seated boy is drinking from a bowl and on the right an old man in red crouches before a basket with a sheep, a cow and a laden white horse. Two further figures are visible in the middle ground, before a landscape background with houses.
Painted with delicacy and bravura, the work appears to be a deliberate pastiche of Jacopo Bassano’s semi-pastoral works such as the ‘Journey of Jacob’ (RCIN 402928). The artist is thought to be a very able Italian who was remote in training and possibly also in time from the Bassano workshop.
The picture has a frame of the type associated with the Consul Smith Collection, suggesting that it might be the painting attributed to Sebastiano Ricci acquired by George III from Consul Smith: ‘Animals in the stile of Bassan’, although the dimensions then quoted do not match those of the present picture.Provenance
Probably the picture first recorded in the Royal Collection during the reign of George III; first securely identified in the Buckingham House inventory of 1818
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
52.5 x 66.6 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
62.7 x 78.2 x 3.8 cm (frame, external)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
Jacob's Journey, previously entitled