Various animals. Plate 8: Interior of a barn, with two donkeys and a dog.

Pieter van Laer (1599-1642) was a Dutch painter, active for much of his career (1625-39) in Rome. There he was nicknamed "Il Bamboccio" (Little clumsy one) on account of his physical disability. According to Joachim van Sandrart, he had long legs, a short trunk and no neck. He was one of the leaders of a fraternal organisation set up by Netherlandish artists in Rome to protect their interests.

Van Laer was the first artist to specialise in scenes of street life in Rome. His robustly realistic, 'salt of the earth' indeed anti-academic style proved popular with collectors and he inspired numerous followers who were known as the "Bamboccianti". They were mainly other Northen Europeans working in Rome. Their pictures are called "bambocciata", Italian for childishness, not complimentary but like Cubism, the name stuck. In 1639 van Laer returned to his native Haarlem. He died young - according to the leading early historian of Dutch artist, Houbraken, he suffered from depression and committed suicide.

This etching is the eighth and final plate in Van Laer's series Various Animals. It is as if he has saved the best for last. A charming yet slightly startling work, it depicts the interior of a barn, with two donkeys and a dog seen through the doorway, and a fragment of their farmer or peasant minder. What is almost a still life of farming implements, set in filtered light conditions, occupies much of the composition, although the animals steal the show. There is no mistaking that they stare straight at the viewer, even if they are at fair a distance from us. Will they be heading this way?

See: Web Gallery of Art, 'Laer, Pieter van', https://www.wga.hu/bio_m/l/laer/biograph.html

Dr Mark Stocker  Curator, Historical International Art     April 2019