NICOLAES BERCHEM (1620-1683)

An Italianate Landscape with Herders and their Flocks

Oil on panel (36 x 45 cm)

Private collection

Of the 70 or so Berchems in public collections in Britain more than half are of drovers and milkmaids with cattle in Italianate landscapes, proving both the popularity of this genre and why his name is so particularly associated with them. Like his Haarlem contemporary Wouwerman, Nicolaes Berchem is as adept at painting figures and animals as he is at creating landscapes, giving his Italianate pastoral scenes a sense of naturalism that borders on reportage

Berchem has an innate sense of design; the seemingly randomly grouped peasants and animals in our picture actually form a loose oval, which he has characteristically set against a high background. He has traditionally been thought to have travelled to Italy around 1652, although he did produce some Italianate landscapes in the 1640’s of which ours is one. The rusticity of the peasants and the overall warm brown tonality is the key to dating this picture. His landscapes of the 1650’s are more varied in colour, and the peasants are more solemn and dignified.

Berchem was a pupil of his father, the distinguished still-life painter Pieter Claesz. , and later he studied under Nicolaes Moeyart and Pieter de Grebber. Nicolaes, in turn, had many pupils, amongst whom were Karel Dujardin, Pieter de Hooch and Jacob Ochtervelt. The scope of his influence can be seen in the work of his many followers (Begeyn, Mommers, Soolmaker, van Bergen and van der Bent to name but a few) and the fact that he added staffage and animals, in his own characteristic style, to paintings by Both, Hobbema, Poelenburgh and Jacob van Ruisdael.