A Cowherd passing a Horse and Cart in a Stream

Artist: Jan Siberechts (Belgian, 1627 - 1703)

Original Dimensions: 25 1/8" x 21 3/8"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (Probably 1658) "Here, the arduous journey of a laden wagon from farm to market is a town dweller’s dream of life in the country. Jan Siberechts lived in the city of Antwerp and earned his living producing such scenes for an urban clientele. Drawing on his experience in the countryside around the city, he idealised what he had seen, portraying ‘the peasant’ as a noble, hard-working figure, showing little sign of the effects of labour in a country where conditions could be harsh. Siberechts has painted an idyll, but it’s the details and textures that seem to have given him the most pleasure: the folds in the old woman’s collar tickled by the feathery leaves below; the sunlight on the girl’s sturdy legs and the folds in her white petticoat; the glint on the cow’s tough horn next to its fluffy tuft of hair. These are all part of the idyllic illusion but were, for the people living in the fast-changing cities of seventeenth-century Flanders, nostalgic and reassuring." - (National Gallery of Art, London)