Pastoral landscapes: A shepherdess spinning

Jan de Visscher (c. 1636-before 1712) was a Dutch Golden Age printmaker who became a painter in later life. According to Arnold Houbraken, the great early biographer of Dutch artists, he was an able etcher who made famous prints in his lifetime after the works of Nicolaes Berchem (as here), Jan van Goyen, Adriaen van Ostade and Philips Wouwerman. He became an able pupil of the landscape painter Michiel Carrée at the advanced age of 56. Houbraken spoke to Michiel Carrée personally about his art, who claimed that Visscher became as good as he was at Italianate landscapes although no paintings by Visscher's hand are known today. Jan de Visscher had two brothers, Cornelis Visscher and Lambert de Visscher. Although he spent his earlier life in Haarlem, he was registered in Amsterdam in 1692. His death was not recorded, and since he is referred to in the past tense when Houbraken was writing, he is assumed to have died before 1712.

This etching/engraving comes from the series Pastoral landscapes, and is based on drawings/designs by Nicolaes Berchem. It depicts a shepherdess holding a spinning staff accompanied by her diverse flock on the brow of a hill, with the shoreline in the distance. There is a certain comedy of contrasts between the shepherdess's grace and the two huge cattle either side of her. Won't her spinning staff impede control of her herd? Probably not, as they look remarakbly placid and contented. Our print is in the so-called King George IV album, acquired by the Dominion Museum, forerunner of Te Papa, in 1910.

Sources:

British Museum Collection online, https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=6219840 01&objectId=3220476&partId=1

Wikipedia, 'Jan de Visscher', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_de_Visscher

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    April 2019