Artwork
Italian landscape with sheperdess and flocks
Italian landscape with sheperdess and flocks is an oil painting by the Rococo painting artist Simon van der Does. It dates from 1708 and is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
5 cm in height and 41 cm in width, and was originally owned by Jan Bernd Bicker before entering the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
The painting presents a traditional pastoral scene featuring a shepherdess tending to grazing sheep within an idealized Italian landscape, embodying the classical notion of harmonious human interaction with nature and reflecting 18th-century aesthetic ideals of order and serenity. Its iconography draws upon established conventions of the pastoral genre, symbolizing rural virtue and the idyllic relationship between humanity and the natural world.
The work was created by Simon van der Does in 1708 using oil paint on panel, measuring 32.5 cm in height and 41 cm in width, and was originally owned by Jan Bernd Bicker before entering the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
Technique & Style
Italian landscape with shepherdess and flocks is classified as a painting executed in oil paint on panel, a support combination typical of small-scale Dutch landscape production of the early eighteenth century. The work measures 32.5 cm in height by 41 cm in width, indicating an intimate, modestly scaled format suited to detailed landscape observation. Dated 1708, the painting belongs to the landscape genre and reflects Simon van der Does's handling of pastoral Italianate scenery, a subject he treated repeatedly through the same medium and support.
The panel support and oil medium would have allowed for the fine, controlled brushwork characteristic of van der Does's landscape idiom, supporting the layered tonal transitions and atmospheric handling associated with his Italianate compositions. The Rijksmuseum holding provides the documented provenance and physical parameters for the work.
History & Provenance
Created in 1708, this oil painting on panel by Simon van der Does depicts an Italian landscape featuring a shepherdess and flocks. The work measures 32.5 cm in height and 41 cm in width. Historical records indicate that the piece was once owned by Jan Bernd Bicker.
Today, the painting is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, where it remains part of the institution's holdings of landscape art.
Italian landscape with shepherdess and flocks by Simon van der Does is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, where it is recorded as an oil-on-panel landscape measuring 32.5 × 41 cm and dated 1708. The work is documented as having been owned by Jan Bernd Bicker, a previous collector, before entering the museum's holdings.
No exhibition history is recorded in the available sources for this painting.
Overview
Italian landscape with sheperdess and flocks is an oil painting by Simon van der Does, dated to 1708, and is part of the Rijksmuseum's collection.
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