Landscape with Fishermen and Shepherds on a Riverbank
1639 - 1641.Not on display
The present painting entered the Museum as an original work by Jan Both. This attribution is maintained in subsequent catalogues and accepted by all authors. This landscape is an exception among those commissioned in Rome for the Palace of the Buen Retiro in that it is the only one that depicts a wild landscape. In addition, it does not extend into the distance; rather, the background is abruptly enclosed by a mountain above which only the sky is visible. The space is crammed between two mountain faces in between which a stream zigzags from the background to the foreground, where the figures of the fishermen and shepherds are located. All this infuses the picture with a dramatic force that is out of keeping with the idyllic tone of the other landscapes in this set of works and, in general, is alien to contemporary Dutch and Italian landscapes. A drawing by Claude Lorrain (Roethlisberger 1968, no. 438) allows the place to be identified as Cascatelle, located south of Tivoli. According to Steland, the waterfall as an iconographic motif inspired by Tivoli was introduced in Rome by Herman van Swanevelt, Jan Both and Jan Asselijn.
As in the two previous landscapes, the warm naturalistic lighting unifies the whole composition. The handling of the rocks and leaves recalls that of the pictures Both painted in Italy. The X-ray image reveals that, like those in the previous two works, the figures were also added to the landscape, but are executed more densely. They are attributed to Jan Miel in early Museum catalogues.
Burke (1976) believes them to be the work of Andries Both (1612/13-1642). However, the handling of the naked torso of the fisherman with one foot in the water is very similar to that of the bare-chested figure in A View on the Tiber or even those of Mercury and Argos in one of the landscapes by Van Swanevelt in the Galleria Barberini, but which Salerno (1977-80, II, no. 65.6) attributes to Both.
There are two known variations on this landscape, both signed by Both: in the Vaughan-Morgan collection (Waddingham 1964, p. 37, ill. 44; Burke 1976, no. 65) and in an Austrian private collection (Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, 2009, p. 333).
