Private collection

This bucolic scene shows milkmaids and shepherds with their flock at the mouth of a grotto, a drover watering his cattle beyond. From the 1650s onwards, Berchem began painting in a purely Italianate style, defined by not only the presence of fragmented architecture and sculpture in his compositions, but by a soft Mediterranean light. The present painting demonstrates the influence of Cornelis van Poelenburgh, under whom Berchem studied.Show more