Pastoral Scene with a Shepherdess Milking a Goat

c. 1665–c. 1670

Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem (Dutch, 1621/22-1683)

One of the most prolific Dutch landscape painters, Nicolas Pietersz. Berchem executed scenes of the Italian campagna (countryside) for cosmopolitan collectors who appreciated foreign views. Against the muddy palette used for the livestock, Berchem highlighted the shepherdess’s skirt with a vibrant blue, a color that attracts the eye of the viewer and of the young shepherd nearby. Alongside paintings of the flat but fertile Dutch landscape, collectors enjoyed fanciful depictions of Italy for their hilly terrain and playful peasants.

Status: On View, Gallery 213
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Nicolaes Berchem
Title: Pastoral Scene with a Shepherdess Milking a Goat
Place: Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1660–1675
Medium: Oil on panel
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right: Berchem. f
Dimensions: 24.8 × 31.1 cm (9 1/4 × 12 1/4 in.); Framed: 40 × 46.7 × 4.5 cm (15 3/4 × 18 3/8 × 1 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Donald and Carol Asher; gift in part from Scott, Lynda, Jonathan, and Lindsey Canel; and purchased with funds provided by Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan in honor of Marlene Welsh Phillips
Reference Number: 2012.113
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/214269/manifest.json

John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, vol. 5 (London: Smith and Son, 1834), pp. 48, 91, nos. 140 and 286.
Gustav Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of more than forty Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, MSS, &c, &c. Forming a Supplement to Treasures of Art in Great Britain (London: J. Murray, 1857), p. 194.
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century based on the Work of John Smith, vol. 9 (Esslingen: Neff; Paris: Kleinberger 1926), p. 116, no. 223.

London, British Institution, Exhibition of Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French and English Masters, June 1840, no. 39.
London, British Institution, Exhibition of Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French and English Masters, June 1848, no. 162.
Saint Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum, A Gentleman Collects, October 25, 2002-January 5, 2003, no cat. no.

E. Arents, Brussels, by 1795; sold on August 12, 1795, to Gerard van der Pot of Groeneveld, for 336 guilders [according to Hofstede de Groot 1926]; Gerard van der Pot of Groeneveld, Rotterdam (died 1807); his estate sale, Gebroeders Van Ryp, Rotterdam, June 6, 1808, lot 13, to Nortwijck, for 1,160 florins [according to annotated copy of sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague; copy in curatorial file]. Charles Brind, London, by 1834 [according to Smith 1834, no. 286]; sold his estate sale, Christie’s, London, May 10 -12, 1849, lot 52, to Norton, for 91 guineas [according to annotated copy of the sale catalogue at the R.K.D, The Hague; copy in curatorial file]. George Field, Ashurst Park, Kent, by 1856 until at least 1875 [exhibited with his collection at Marlborough House, 1856, according to Waagen 1857]. Sold Sotheby’s, London, June 21, 1961, lot 205, to Terry Engell, for £500 [buyer and price in marked copy of sale catalogue in Ryerson Library; copy in curatorial file]. Gooden and Fox, Ltd., London, 1961; sold to Christian B. Peper, Saint Louis (died 2011); consigned by his estate to Christie’s, New York; sold Christie’s, New York, January 25, 2012, lot no. 46, to Scott Canel in consultation with two other members of the Old Masters Society; given to the Art Institute, 2012.

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Pastoral Scene with a Shepherdess Milking a Goat

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Inscriptions

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.