Oil painting, 'Landscape with Figures and Cattle', follower of Nicolaes Berchem, late 17th century

Hilly landscape with four figures, three horses, a cow and a dog in the foreground, and figures walking in the distance.

Given by Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, Bt

Given by Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, Bart., 1901

Historical significance: This work is probably of late 17th century date. It is a copy of an engraving after Berchem dated 1659-1664 from the series Six Landscapes after Nicolaes Berchem, impressions in the British Museum, London, registration number F,2.50. A similar composition attributed to Berchem, with the boy at the centre viewed from the front, is in the Synebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki (inv. A I 667).

Nicolaes Berchem is best known for his imaginary Italianate landscapes, and had a prolific output, in a variety of themes. It is uncertain if he visited Italy or only known Italy through the drawings of artists who had travelled there. His numerous pupils included Karel Dujardin, Willem Romeyn, Hendrick Mommers, Dirck Maes, Pieter de Hooch and Jacob Ochtervelt. The French painter François Boucher owned some of Berchem's pictures in the mid-18th century, and his work also inspired Francesco Zuccarelli, Marco Ricci and perhaps even Antoine Watteau.

Italianate landscapes were particularly popular during the 17th century. The term conventionally refers to the school of Dutch painters and draughtsmen who were active in Rome for over a century from the early 17th century. They mainly produced pastoral scenes 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 also worked primarily in an Italianate style. The taste for Italianate landscapes continued undiminished into the 19th century.

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 good example of Nicolaes Berchem's imaginary Italianate landscapes and relates to a print engraved between 1659 and 1664. Nicolaes Berchem was highly praised by his contemporaries and had a prolific output (over 800 paintings and numerous drawings) which had a considerable influence on the art of the time. Among his pupils were the famous painters Pieter de Hooch and Karel Dujardin.

629-1901