Flemish School Oil On Panel Study of a Shepherd At Rest - Attributed to Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven (1798-1881)

A fine and highly detailed 18th century oil on panel painting depicting a shepherd and his flock at rest within an extensive landscape. The painting takes as its subject a form of landscape present in much Dutch art of the preceding century. The pastoralist mode in which the landscape is composed is Italianate, executed in the manner of artists like Nicolaes Berchem and Jan Hackaert.

The shepherd rests upon a grassy bank in the foreground, almost in shadow which emphasises the depth of the landscape. Next to him two sheep rest and a bull, the main subject of this painting, stands proudly gazing directly at the viewer. A river runs to the left and in the distance, through the haze across a further expanse of water is the skyline of a small settlement, a tower rising through the mist.

Of particular note is the paintings rich soft and pleasing colour palette, the lively brushstrokes with which the artist has rendered the animals as well as the subtle and fleeting cloudscape and the resulting light that bathes the scene.

Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven (1798-1881) was taught at first by his father, the sculptor Barthélemy Verboeckhoven, before attending the Ghent Academy where he was a pupil of the landscape painter Balthasar-Paul Ommeganck (1755-1826). He moved to Brussels in 1827, where he became director of the Musée de Bruxelles and later a teacher at the Académie Royale. He had many pupils among whom Louis-Pierre Verwée (1807-1877), the brothers Charles (1815-1894) and Edmond Tschaggeny (1818-1873). He also painted staffage for other painters' landscapes such as Jean-Baptiste De Jonghe (1785-1844), Henri van Assche (1774-1841), Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803-1862) and Louis-Pierre Verwée. He was also a prolific engraver.

This painting, showing a shepherd, bull and sheep silhouetted against a white and blue sky, is a typical example of Verboeckhoven's depictions of animals in carefully arranged, flat landscapes. He also executed scenes of animals and farmers in the farmyard, The artist was deeply influenced by the 17th-century imagery and the work of Paulus Potter, the great animal painter of the Golden Age.

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Panel: 27cm x 23cm.
Framed Dimensions: 36cm x 32cm