Peasants with Four Oxen and a Goat at a Ford by a Ruined Aqueduct

The evening sun touches the sturdy cattle standing at the foot of the ruins of a Roman archway. The soft light casts shadows on the weather-worn stones, displaying the ruin’s age and former grandeur. The hills behind may have been recorded by Berchem during a possible stay in Italy, but the cows are unmistakably Dutch cows, highly valued for their vital place in the Dutch economy.

Berchem’s work, like that of other Italianate painters –- who had lived in Italy and been influenced by the work of Italian artists, the southern landscape and the remnants of Antiquity – was prized by collectors until well into the nineteenth century, but then began to be seen as ‘un-Dutch’ and therefore less interesting. The picture became part of Sir Robert Peel’s large collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings. When the collection was bought for the nation in 1871, the taste for such paintings was perhaps already seen as old-fashioned. Italianate landscapes were more widely appreciated after a groundbreaking exhibition held in 1965.

Text: © The National Gallery, London

Painting photographed in its frame by Google Arts & Culture, 2023.