Oil painting on canvas, 'Landscape With Cattle', copy after Nicolaes Berchem, early 19th century

An Italianate landscape with a bridge surmounted by a statue, a stream under it and figures with cattle.

Bequeathed by John M. Parsons

Bequeathed by John M. Parsons, 1870
John Meeson Parsons (1798-1870), art collector, was born in Newport, Shropshire. He later settled in London, and became a member of the stock exchange. His interest in railways led to his election as an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1839, and he was director or chairman of two railway companies between 1843 and 1848. Much of his time however was spent collecting pictures and works of art. In his will he offered his collection of mostly German and Dutch schools to the National Gallery (which selected only three works) and to the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington, later the Victoria and Albert Museum. The South Kensington Museum acquired ninety-two oil paintings and forty-seven watercolours. A number of engravings were also left to the British Museum.

Historical significance: This painting is a copy in reverse of a Berchem’s landscape dated 1656 now in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg and formerly in the Collection of the Comte de Choisel, Paris (1772) and therefore relates to the engraving (also in reverse) Le matin made by Jacques Philippe Le Bas and dated ca. 1741 (The British Museum, London, registration number 1878,0713.4203). The present painting is however depicted from a slightly closer point of view and imitates the golden palette, albeit with a pinkish touch, of the original.
The compositional idea is typical of Nicolaes Berchem that recurrently used a diagonal horizon, here the arched bridge, with smaller figures in the background in order to enhance the sense of perspective. In these panoramic paintings, the figures usually play a secondary role as they are as important as the setting and its architectural elements. The statue of the Virgin seen from the back and the arched bridge are reminiscent of Italy whereas the peasants have no distinctive features.
Nicolaes Berchem was highly praised by his contemporaries and often copied and imitated. He had a prolific output (over 800 paintings and numerous drawings) and a considerable influence on the art of his time. Among his pupils were the famous painters Pieter de Hooch and Karel Dujardin and his son, Nicolaes (van) Berchem.
This copy illustrates well the popularity of Berchem's pictures among collectors would rather have a copy after Berchem or Jan Both than a scene of the Dutch countryside by Jacob van Ruisdael for instance. Copies were then conceived as true works of art and therefore as desirable as an authentic works. Nicolaes Berchem had a great impact on the tradition of landscapes paintings not only within the Netherlands but also outside. The French Rococo painter, François Boucher, owned some of his pictures in the mid-18th century and he also inspired such prominent artists as Francesco Zuccarelli, Marco Ricci and maybe even Antoine Watteau.

Italianate landscapes were particularly praised during the 17th century up to the early 19th century. The term conventionally refers to the school of Dutch painters and draughtsmen who were active in Rome for more than a hundred years, starting from the early 17th century. These artists produced mainly pastoral subjects bathed in warm southern light, set in an Italian, or specifically Roman, landscape. The term is also often applied, but wrongly, to artists who never left the northern Netherlands but who worked primarily in an Italianate style. Eighteenth-century collectors, especially French ones, preferred a view by Berchem or Both to a scene of the Dutch country side by Jacob van Ruisdael for instance. The taste for the Italianates continued undiminished into the 19th century. An early voice denouncing these artists was that of John Constable in 1836 and at the end of the century Italianates had lost favour oartly because of the rise of Impressionism and the appreciation of the Dutch national school of landscape expounded by such eminent critics as Wilhem von Bode, E.W. Moes and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot.

Nicolaes Berchem (1620-1683) may have trained in Haarlem with Jan van Goyen. He was a prolific painter (about 850 paintings), draughtsman and etcher. He joined the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1642. From the mid-1650s until his death, Berchem shuttled back and forth between Haarlem and Amsterdam where he died in 1683.

This painting is a copy in reverse of a Berchem’s landscape entitled Italian Landscape with a Small Bridge dated 1656 showing in the golden light of the morning sun peasants travelling with their animals in a landscape reminiscent of Italy. The compositional idea is typical of Nicolaes Berchem that recurrently used a diagonal horizon, here the arched bridge, with smaller figures in the background in order to enhance the sense of perspective. Nicolaes Berchem was highly praised by his contemporaries and often copied and imitated. He had a prolific output (over 800 paintings and numerous drawings) and a considerable influence on the art of his time. Among his pupils were the famous painters Pieter de Hooch and Karel Dujardin.

569-1870