Download Image
Terms and conditions of use
Italianate river landscape
(1678)
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
65.7 × 82.0 cm
Credit Line
Bequest of Robert Victor Jones, 2026
© Public Domain
Gallery location
17th Century & Flemish Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
Born in Haarlem, Nicolaes Berchem initially studied painting under Jan van Goyen and other masters, before specialising in Italianate landscape compositions. To this end he clearly travelled to Italy, although the exact dates of his sojourns there remain unknown. Berchem’s early biographer Arnold Houbraken wrote around 1720 that he ‘was exceptionally diligent, and also an effortless painter and everything he made was usually sold even before he completed it’. His reputation was at its zenith in the eighteenth century. When this lively study of peasants dancing before an expansive vista was in the renowned collection of Jean de Julienne in Paris in 1767, it was described as ‘painted with honesty and one of Berchem’s finest works’.
Artwork Details
Department
International Painting