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Overview
Roelant Roghman (1627-1692) was born in Amsterdam, the son of the engraver Henrick Lambertsz Roghman and Maria Jacobs Savery. He became a student of his namesake and great-uncle, Roelant Savery. Roghman is said to have only had one eye and he painted in a rough and ready way, perhaps a consequence of his eyesight.
While many 17th-century Dutch artists included castles in their landscapes, Roghman focused on them as independent subjects. When he was twenty years old, he began a series of drawings of manor houses and castles that many scholars today consider his greatest achievement. Some mystery surrounds his other paintings, drawings and etchings. Roghman rarely dated his work, especially paintings, so his stylistic development is difficult to trace. Many of his drawings are characterised by zigzag strokes and markings, while the roughly 35 paintings attributed to him are noted for their lively use of colour.
Between 1645 and 1648, Roghman worked on one of his print series with his elder sister Geertruydt, under the title Plaisante Landschappen (‘pleasant landscapes') or ‘Amusing scenes drawn from life by Roelant Rogman’. Their landscape series of more than 200 prints, showing mostly castles and landed estates in the Dutch provinces of North Holland and Utrecht, were very popular. Like Geertruyd, Roelant never married, and died a resident of the old men's almshouse in Amsterdam.
Te Papa currently has seven etchings by Roelant Roghman in its collection, all but one depicting Tyrolean landscapes - an Alpine region in present-day Italy and Austria. Geertruydt is also represented in the collection, with seven etchings depicting village landscapes around Amsterdam, after Roelant. Athough Roghman's trip to the Tyrol is not documented, the prints speak for themselves, and the likely date is indicated by a drawing of the Alps (1654; Boijmans Museum, Rotterdam).
This print, Plate 5 in the series, depicts a mountainous landscape with a shepherd plunged in shadow, sitting near a rudely carved roadside cross, with his flock of sheep nearby. Two tall, slender birch trees with crossed trunks dominate the foreground, with poplars further back.
Sources:
British Museum Collection online, https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1623899&partId=1&searchTex t=roghman+landscape&page=1
Wikipedia, ‘Roelant Roghman', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roelant_Roghman
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art April 2019