Italianised landscape with a pair of shepherds on a country lane, ca. 1795

About the Work

This drawing was clearly intended as an artwork in its own right. The composition may have had its origins in a painted wall decoration of the kind produced by Jacob van Strij and his brother Abraham, who ran a painting business in Dordrecht. It depicts a landscape in the style of Jan Both, one of the most well-known “Italianists” – that is, seventeenth-century Netherlandish painters specializing in Italianate views. By finely gradating the colours from golden yellow to cool blue, the artist captured the characteristic Mediterranean light and atmosphere.