Claes Pietersz. Berchem Haarlem 1620 - 1683 Amsterdam

Lucas Merens, Burgomaster of Hoorn and Director of the Dutch East India Company;
His (deceased) sale, Amsterdam, Ploos v. A. Yver, 15 April 1778, (added lot) lot 173a, for 250 Florins to Cornelis Ploos van Amstel;
J.T. Batt, New Hall, Salisbury, by 1834;
Thence by inheritance or sale at New Hall to Major General Buckley, by 1853;
By presumed inheritance to Alfred Buckley, Esq., by 1883;
By whose Executors sold, London, Christie’s, 4 May 1901, lot 24, for 231 Guineas 5 shillings to Colnaghi;
With P. &.D. Colnaghi, London;
With Hans Cramer, The Hague, by 1957, and in 1964;
A. Sutter, Mannheim, by 1965 until after 1978.

London, British Institution, 1853, no. 75 (lent by Major-General Buckley);
London, Royal Academy, 1883, no. 239 (lent by A. Buckley);
Utrecht, Centraalmuseum, Nederlandse 17 eeuwse Italianiserende Landschapschilders, 10 March - 30 May 1965, no. 85;
Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, The Golden Age of Dutch Landscape Painting, 1994, no. 9;
London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Inspired by Italy. Dutch landscape painting, 1600-1700, 22 May - 26 August 2002, no. 31.

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné…, vol. V, London 1834, p. 81, no. 252;
A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions 1813-1912, London 1913, vol. I, pp. 60 and 62;
C. Hofstede de Groot, Bescheibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke..., vol. IX, Esslingen/Paris 1926, p. 179, no. 449;
"Notable Works of Art now on the Market", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. XCIX, no. 651, June 1957, reproduced plate IX;
E. Schaar, Studien zu Nicolaes Berchem, dissertation, Cologne 1958, p. 69;
A. Blankert, Nederlandse 17e Eeuwse Italianiserende Landschapschilders, Soest 1978, pp. 162-3, no. 83, reproduced plate 85;
P. Sutton, in The Golden Age of Dutch Landscape Painting, exhibition catalogue, Madrid 1994, p. 80. cat. no. 9, reproduced in colour on facing page;
L. Harwood, in Inspired by Italy. Dutch landscape painting, 1600-1700, exhibition catalogue, London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 22 May - 26 August 2002, p. 140, cat. no. 31, reproduced in colour on p. 141.

This picture is generally dated to the early 1660s, when Berchem's Italianate landscapes become more monumental in their effect, with strongly emphasized architectural settings, and often, as here, an evening setting with dark shadows and a rich light from the setting sun catching parts of the composition - for example, here, the group of herders and animals in the foreground.  Berchem thus uses light and massed forms to imbue pictures such as this with heightened drama.  While this development of Berchem's fully mature style can be observed in a number of his pictures, it is the few dated pictures that provide useful markers.  The Mauritshuis picture of 1661, which also shows massed Roman ruins casting a deep shadow, with the setting sun catching a group of figures and animals in the foreground, has been cited since Albert Blankert remarked on it in his 1965 exhibition catalogue, as a salient work marking this transition.

The present picture has a particularly pleasing and relaxed informal compositional scheme, which takes the form of a large bow or semi-circle, starting with the figures and animals standing on dry land just this side of the stream in the right foreground, curving left and receding to the second group of figures who are fording the stream, at the left of the composition, then curving back towards the centre of the composition and still receding, following the line of the bank and, initially the ruins that stand above it, exiting the composition where a clump of trees on the now-distant bank form a discreet repoussoir.

The 73 lots of Old Master and British Pictures sold by the Executors of Alfred Buckley in 1901 had, according to the sale catalogue, been largely collected by J.T. Batt, and hung at New Hall, Salisbury, in his ownership, and that of Alfred Buckley until the house burnt down.  It is thus assumed that they passed by inheritance or sale while remaining at New Hall.