Lot Essay
The present painting, with its large-scale genre elements placed close to the picture plane, its bright colors and strong chiarascuro effects, can be grouped with a number of other paintings similar in style and composition. Brochhagen (op. cit.), using a date of 1660, relates it to a pair of paintings of Morning and Evening in the Gemldegalerie, Berlin (see A. Blankert, Nederlandse 17e Euwse, Italianiserende Landschapschilders, 1978, pp. 204-5, nos. 124-5), and Woman and Boy in a Ford, signed and dated 1660, in the Koninklijk voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (ibid., p. 206, no. 126).
While the theme of peasants crossing a ford seems to have first been taken up by Pieter van Laer, like many other subjects it soon became popular among the Dutch Italianate painters such as Jan Asselijn, Nicolaes Berchem and Karel Dujardin. Indeed, a very similar composition by Dujardin's teacher Nicolaes Berchem, which includes the woman seen from behind, in a private collection (see F. Duparc and L.L. Graif, loc. cit.) would appear to be the basis for the present painting.
While the theme of peasants crossing a ford seems to have first been taken up by Pieter van Laer, like many other subjects it soon became popular among the Dutch Italianate painters such as Jan Asselijn, Nicolaes Berchem and Karel Dujardin. Indeed, a very similar composition by Dujardin's teacher Nicolaes Berchem, which includes the woman seen from behind, in a private collection (see F. Duparc and L.L. Graif, loc. cit.) would appear to be the basis for the present painting.