Sold Without Reserve | MICHIEL CARRÉE | A LANDSCAPE WITH COWS, SHEEP AND A RESTING HERDSMAN

The Dutch artist Michiel Carrée had a long, successful career that stretched far outside the Netherlands. Born in the Hague in 1657, he trained in Haarlem with Nicolaes Berchem. After time working back in his hometown, he moved to Amsterdam where he married his wife in 1686 and where he is recorded as having a workshop by 1692. In 1697, after a short stint in Great Britain and a return to the Hague, Carrée was invited Berlin where he assumed his position as Court Painter to Elector Friedrich III, and in 1702 he became private painter to King Friedrich I of Prussia—a role he filled until the king’s death in 1713. During his tenure in Berlin, he also occasionally served as director of the Königliche Akademie der Künste. After his success in Germany, he returned to Amsterdam, though he ended his career in Alkmaar, where he enrolled in the Guild of Saint Luke in 1725. 

Carrée often specialized in wooded landscapes populated with cows, sheep, goats other animals, and often a figure or two. In the present example, a heard of cattle and a few sheep rest within a quiet landscape as a herdsman slumbers beneath a nearby tree. A few other animals graze in the distant landscape.