Sheep, goats and cows series: Four resting and one standing sheep.

Johann Heinrich Roos (1631–85) was a German baroque era landscape painter and etcher. When he was young, he moved with his family to Amsterdam during to the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). Roos trained with a number of prominent Dutch Golden age landscape painters and though was not registered as a pupil of Rembrandt, he made a copy of a painting by Rembrandt that he saw presumably in Amsterdam while he trained there from 1647 to 1653.

Roos specialised in scenes depicting rural idylls and idealised landscapes with ancient ruins. He found inspiration in engraving and etchings. Among biblical, historical and genre scenes, Roos preferred subjects involving animals; often depicting a variety of farm and domesticated animals. These scenes represent the Roos’ longing for harmony between men and animals with nature, representing each species with anatomical correctness but also real insight into their psychology. 

In 1653 the Roos family returned to Germany. He moved with his family to Frankfurt in 1667 and was very successful but in 1685 lost everything in a fire, tragically dying when he tried to save his belongings. Four sons and a daughter survived to become noted painters.

All of Roos’s works in Te Papa's collection - currently eight etchings - depict domestic animals, often set against ruins of classical antiquity. This print is from the series of 12 named Sheep, Goats and Cows in the British Museum collection online catalogue. As the title of the work suggests, this etching depicts a flock of five sheep, one of which is standing at left, and another obvioiusly baa-ing, beside a large ruined masonry wall, overgrown with vegetation. The background depicts rolling hills and two figures, one on horseback, walking along an arched bridge.