Oil Painting, 'Landscape with Sheep and Ducks', Eugène-Joseph Verboeckhoven, 1865

In a flat landscape, two lambs and a sheep are resting by a pond with two ducks; another sheep seen from the back is standing nearby.

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: Verboeckhoven specialised in classical landscape painting under the influence of his master Balthasar-Paul Ommeganck and particularly favoured the 17th-century imagery. He discovered the work of the great animal painter Paulus Potter (1625-1654) in the early 30s and remained extremely impressed by him. After this date, his work shows little evolution and the present painting, dated 1865, appears therefore very similar to early works presenting the same subject matter such as the V&A paintings Landscape with donkey (1085-1886) and Donkey and sheep (1532-1869). Many comparable works can also be found in private and public collections such as the Royal Collection, London (see Landscape with animals, Inv. RCN407874).
The present painting showing two lambs, two sheep and two ducks in a flat and carefully arranged landscape is a typical example of Verboeckhoven's borrowing from Paulus Potter's famous animal studies and takes over Paulus Potter's trend to silhouette animals in profile against a clear bright sky such as in his famous composition including imposing standing bulls.
Animal portraits were popular during the 17th century as they presented animals, especially sheep, donkeys and cows, conceived as embodiments of the Dutch national pride.
Art from the Golden Age was extremely appealing to landscape painters of the 19th century also because it represented a national glory and showed motifs such as cattle, scenes in the countryside, great perspective plans that renew the national pride in those years of political changes: the kingdom of the Netherlands unifying the northern and the southern Netherlands was proclaimed in 1815, and even after the independence of modern Belgium, the links remained strong.

The artistic relationship between the Northern and the Southern Netherlands, that is modern-day Holland and Belgium, were very strong during the 19th century especially after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Netherlands in 1815. The Prix de Rome was awarded equally to Antwerp and Amsterdam artists, even after the independence of Belgium in 1830 and the great tradition of the Golden Age was still vivid in the first half of the century. The majority of Belgian art of the first half of the 19th century, including history painting, genre scenes, landscape and portrait paintings, articulated a new national pride which nevertheless drew upon French academic taste. Such artists as Jean-Bernard Duvivier (1762-1837), Henry Leys (1815-1869) and Karel Verlat (1824-1890) made extensive use of these renewed genres in their oeuvre. Focusing on the achievement of a greater realism, Belgian artists travelled a great deal, not only for training purposes in the tradition of their artistic predecessors but for the sake of discovering new surroundings and making new acquaintances: Paris was the favourite destination. While Italy also remained a popular destination, the majority of these artists tended to move on to other areas of interest, such as Morocco, less for their artistic traditions, and more for their exotic aspects.

Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven (1798-1881) was taught at first by his father, the sculptor Barthélemy Verboeckhoven, before attending the Ghent Academy where he was a pupil of the landscape painter Balthasar-Paul Ommeganck (1755-1826). He moved to Brussels in 1827, where he became director of the Musée de Bruxelles and later a teacher at the Académie Royale. He had many pupils among whom Louis-Pierre Verwée (1807-1877), the brothers Charles (1815-1894) and Edmond Tschaggeny (1818-1873). He also painted staffage for other painters' landscapes such as Jean-Baptiste De Jonghe (1785-1844), Henri van Assche (1774-1841), Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803-1862) and Louis-Pierre Verwée. He was also a prolific engraver.

This painting, showing two lambs and a sheep resting by a pond with two ducks and another sheep seen from the back standing nearby, is a typical example of Verboeckhoven's depictions of animals in carefully arranged, flat landscapes. He also executed scenes of animals and farmers in the farmyard, of which the V&A's collection has an example (see 1528-1869). The artist was deeply influenced by the 17th-century imagery and the work of Paulus Potter, the great animal painter of the Golden Age.

493-1870