Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem

The panel is uncradled, flat and stable.The paint surface is clean and the varnish is clear and even. The wood grain has become slightly visible through the paint surface through some of the darker passages, but the colours are otherwise vibrant. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals scattered tiny lines of retouching to the wood grain in the sky and landscape below, and more concentrated, larger areas of retouching through the shadows of the arches. There are small scattered areas of retouching along the lower and left margins, particularly in the lower left corner, and there is some strengthening in the shadows between the cattle and in the woman's green skirt. In overall good condition.
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The painting shows a landscape inspired by the countryside near Rome, with a herdswoman directing her cattle to water beneath a ruined aqueduct. Berchem is thought to have made two trips to Italy, first in the early 1640s and next between 1651-53. This painting was most likely executed following his return to Haarlem after his second trip and compares favourably with the, albeit larger, 1656-dated landscape in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig and an upright landscape in the National Gallery, London which has been dated to the period 1655-60.

1. For the former see the catalogue to the exhibition, Nicolaes Berchem. In the Light of Italy, Haarlem 2007, pp. 137-8, cat. no. 16, reproduced pp. 34, 36-8.