Southern Landscape with Figures and Cattle at a River
Medium
Black chalk and gray wash; framing line in pen and black ink; over a framing line in pen and brown ink
Dimensions
sheet: 8 7/16 x 12 13/16 in. (21.4 x 32.6 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harry G. Sperling Fund, 2011
Accession Number
2011.172
Tags
Art Historical Context
Jan van der Meer the’s *Southern Landscape with and Cattle at a* (1686) a tranquil pastoral scene of late seventeenth-century Dutch art. The drawing depicts herdsmen and cattle pausing beside a gently flowing river, framed by leafy trees and rolling terrain that evokes the sunlit countryside of Italy. Such “Italianate” views were popular among Dutch collectors who admired the idealized light and atmosphere of the south, even when rendered from the artist’s studio in the Netherlands. Executed in black chalk and gray wash with delicate ink framing lines, the sheet demonstrates van der Meer’s sk...