Description:
Karel Dujardin (Amsterdam 1626 - Venice 1678)
"The Rest of the Shepherds"
Flemish School of the 17th Century
oil on canvas - excellent state of preservation
Dimensions (cm): canvas 47 x 58
with neoclassical gilded frame 60 x 70 cm
The painting under examination, executed with masterful attention to compositional details, proposes a typical Italian landscape view set in the Roman countryside, so beloved by Flemish artists who came to the capital to refine their technique and to study the great masters from life, also finding in the territory of central Italy an unparalleled landscape for the realization of their works.
The canvas fully represents this concept, depicting a splendid landscape, executed according to the dictates of 17th-century Flemish painting, very close to reality, where detail and particular are the typical elements of its pictorial aesthetic. In particular, the work is easily attributable to the hand of the Dutchman Karel Dujardin, a pupil of Nicolaes Berchem, who spent a large part of his prolific career in Italy.
In in our work, a family of shepherds is immortalized in a moment of rest, while watching over their group of herds intent on drinking from a body of water. The mother, sitting on the back of a donkey, offers cherries to her men, in a gesture of tender kindness.
Karel Dujardin's training took place under the guidance of Nicolaes Berchem, who left an important mark on his art. He moved to Italy in 1642 to settle in Rome, where, although very young, he became part of the group of painters "Bentvueghels", a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome from around 1620 to 1720.
After the trip to Italy, from 1652 until 1674, he worked in Amsterdam, France and The Hague.
In 1675 he returned to Rome. For three years he dedicated himself to touring the peninsula before moving to Venice, where he died in 1678.
Known above all as a bambocciante, a painter of natural and animal themes, he is mostly esteemed as a landscape painter, a genre in which he was initially inspired by Berchem and then by Paulus Potter.
He painted Italian landscapes, popular scenes with backgrounds of Roman ruins, seeking effects of a clear and limpid atmosphere derived from Asselijn and Potter.
Today a good number of his works are exhibited in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and in the National Gallery in London.
More photographic details on https://www.antichitaischia.it/it/prodotto/il-riposo-dei-pastori
