Elegant Shepherdess Listening to a
Shepherd Playing the Recorder in an
Arcadian LandscapeGovaert Flinck(Kleve 1615 – 1660 Amsterdam)1654
oil on canvas
139 x 170 cm
signed and dated lower left: “G flinck. f. 1654(?)”
GF-101© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Elegant Shepherdess Listening to a Shepherd Playing the Recorderin an Arcadian Landscape
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How to cite
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Elegant Shepherdess Listening to a Shepherd Playing the Recorder in an ArcadianLandscape” (2018). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York,2017–20.

https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/elegant-shepherdess-listening-to-a-shepherd-playing-the-recorder-in-an-arcadian-landscape/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Elegant Shepherdess Listening to a Shepherd Playing the Recorderin an Arcadian Landscape
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Govaert Flinck’s depiction of an amorous shepherd and shepherdess in the

Comparative Figureswarm, evening light of a rolling landscape captures the lyrical character ofthe Dutch pastoral tradition.[1] The shepherd, dressed in a burnt umber robe,
calf-high sandals, and a floppy brown hat, plays a recorder as he gazes
longingly at the shepherdess seated beside him.[2] She returns her lover’s
gaze with a coy, sideways glance, while placing a rose on her garland offlowers. Her arm barely conceals the plunging neckline of her bodice, which
she wears over a voluminous, blue satin skirt. A lamb grazes near the pair’sfeet, while the rest of the flock is visible beyond the shady enclosure of thetrees.
The Leiden Collection painting is the only multi-figure pastoral landscape that
Flinck executed during his career, and it reflects his familiarity with a broader
pastoral tradition in the Netherlands. While Pieter Lastman (1583–1633) was

Fig 1. Govaert Flinck, Rembrandt
as a Shepherd with Flute andStaff, 1636, oil on canvas, 74.5 ×
64 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
inv no.. SK-A-3451

the first to depict pastoral scenes, in Amsterdam in the 1610s, the genre
most fully developed in Utrecht in the 1620s.[3] There, Abraham Bloemaert(1566–1651), Paulus Moreelse (1571–1638), and Gerrit van Honthorst(1592–1656) began to produce half-length representations of shepherds andshepherdesses, popularizing the convention for pastoral images that quickly
spread to cities such as Amsterdam and Dordrecht.[4] Flinck’s own interest in
pastoral subject matter began in the mid-1630s in the Amsterdam workshop
of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69), evident in his portraits of Rembrandt andSaskia as Shepherd (fig 1) and Shepherdess from 1636.[5] In the Leiden
Collection work, Flinck more directly explored the Arcadian themes of loveand music by depicting the figures in the acts of flute playing and garland

Fig 2. Abraham
Bloemaert, Pastoral Scene, 1627,
oil on canvas, 61.3 x 74.8 cm,
Landesmuseum, Hannover, ©
Landesmuseum Hannover –ARTOTHEK

making, roles that were traditionally associated with shepherds andshepherdesses.[6]The Dutch interest in the portrayal of pastoral figures grew from a literary
tradition that espoused the values of the simple, idyllic life of the shepherd.
Works such as Pieter Cornelisz Hooft’s Granida, published in 1615, andJohan van Heemskerck’s Batavische Arcadia, from 1637, which were
inspired by antique and Italian precedents, spurred the growing taste for
pastoral cultural ideals.[7] The flowering of this genre was similarly evident in
the production of Crispijn de Passe’s book of engraved pastoral
portraits, Les vrais portraits de quelques unes des plus grandes dames de laChrestiente, desguisées en bergères, from 1640, as well as in the Hofdicht,
or “country house” poetry and songbooks, of Jacob Cats, Jan Harmens Krul,
and Joost van den Vondel, which were published in Amsterdam in the middle

Fig 3. Ferdinand Bol, Portrait ofLeonard Winnincx and Helena vanden Heuvel as Jason and Medea,
1664, oil on canvas, 160.5 x 182.5
cm, The Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg, ??-760, Image is usedfrom www.hermitagemusum.org,
courtesy of The State Hermitage
Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

decades of the century.[8]© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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A number of Dutch artists in this period portrayed the interaction between an
amorous shepherd and shepherdess in a landscape, largely without aspecific narrative.[9] In his Pastoral Scene of 1627 (fig 2), for example,
Abraham Bloemaert focused on the relationship between the shepherd andshepherdess in an expansive landscape.[10] The shepherdess, identified byher crook and gourd, engages the advances of the humble shepherd who
brazenly places his flute under her skirt. This sense of amorous revelry
resonates in Flinck’s painting, although the relationship between the figures
is more convincingly portrayed as one of reciprocal pastoral love. With herivory skin, blond hair, and revealing neckline, Flinck’s elegant shepherdesswelcomes the flirtatious advances of her male companion. Flinckemphasized the sensuous nature of their interchange by positioning thewoman’s circular garland directly at the end of the shepherd’s flute.[11] The
soft, graceful forms of Flinck’s figures and the earth-toned palette reflect the
lyricism of the pastoral tradition and the evocation of Arcadian themes.[12]The subject and character of the Leiden Collection painting are also
consistent with the broader classicizing interests and style of history paintersworking in Amsterdam around 1650.[13] Artists such as Jacob Backer(1608–51),

FerdinandBol(1616–80),

Jacob

van

Loo

(1614–70),

and Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621–74), turned increasingly to subjects
drawn from or inspired by Dutch and Italian pastoral literature andmythology.[14] For example, in Bol’s Portrait of Leonard Winnincx and Helena
van den Heuvel as Jason and Medea (fig 3), from 1664, the couple’s
exchange similarly occurs in the foreground beneath a dense cluster oftrees.[15] Although the eroticism of Bol’s image is made more explicit by the
woman’s exposed breast, the large, solid figures and warm palette suggest
the commonalities between Flinck and Bol’s compositional and stylistic
approaches. Flinck’s broad, sweeping brushstrokes and looser handling ofpaint, however, distinguish this work from that of his contemporary andenhance its suggestive and elegant tone. These qualities would have madethe Leiden Collection painting suitable as a chimneypiece in a sophisticatedAmsterdam home, a setting that reflected the elite, intellectual circles inwhich Flinck operated in the seventeenth century.[16]- Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 2018

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes

1. Before its sale at Sotheby’s in Amsterdam in 2007, GF-101 had been in a Dutch private
collection since the 1930s. In his monograph on Flinck, Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke
included a possible second version of GF-101, previously in the collection of Jan Steen(1625/1626–79) (sale, Alkmaar, 12 August 1750). The author has been unable to locate a
copy of this auction catalogue to confirm the existence of a second version. See Joachim
Wolfgang von Moltke, Govaert Flinck (1615–1660) (Amsterdam, 1965), 97, nos. 147 and148a; Werner Sumowksi, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz,
1983–94), 2: no. 635. For Abraham Blooteling’s engraving after GF-101, see Friedrich
Wilhelm Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, ca. 1450–1700,
72 vols. (Amsterdam, 1949–2010), 2: 213, no. 101.
2. A similarly posed flute player can be seen in a drawing by Flinck in the Abrams Collection:
Govaert Flinck, Seated Flute Player, black and white chalk on blue paper, 180 x 280 mm,
Maida and George Abrams Collection, Boston.
3. Lastman executed four pastoral landscapes with figures in the 1610s and early 1620s, which
Alison Kettering has identified as the earliest painted representations of this theme in the
Netherlands: Paris and Oenone, 1610, oil on panel, High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Landscapewith Pastoral Figures, ca. 1612, private collection, New York; Paris and Oenone, 1619, oil on
panel, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts; and Amorous Pastoral Couple,
1624, Muzeum Narodowe, Gda?sk. The iconography of Lastman’s paintings—whether they
depict mythological narratives or were intended as pastoral scenes with erotic overtones—has
been debated among scholars. The examples in Worcester and Atlanta, which have been
identified as subjects taken from Ovid, suggest the former. Lastman’s works had little impact
on contemporaries, and while they mark an important prototype to GF-101, they do not sharethe monumentality and sensual character of Flinck’s work. For Lastman’s pastoral
landscapes, see Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its Audience in
the Golden Age (Montclair, 1983), 88–89; Peter van den Brink, ed., Het Gedroomde Land:
Pastorale schilderkunst in de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat. Utrecht, Centraal Museum) (Zwolle,1993), no. 34; Martina Sitt, ed., Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandts Schatten? (Exh. cat.
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle) (Munich, 2006), no. 7. Most recently, see the discussion of
GF-101 and Lastman in Eric Jan Sluijter, “Out of Rembrandt’s Shadow: Govert Flinck andFerdinand Bol as History Painters,” in Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck—Rembrandt’s Master
Pupils, ed. Norbert Middelkoop and David DeWitt (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Amsterdam
Museum) (Zwolle, 2017), 110–12, no. 29, fig. 132.
4. The works of Bloemaert, Moreelse, and Van Honthorst influenced Rembrandt’s first
depictions of shepherdesses in Amsterdam in the mid-1630s, which may be considered the© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Elegant Shepherdess Listening to a Shepherd Playing the Recorderin an Arcadian Landscape
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earliest examples of this type of painting outside of Utrecht, beyond Lastman. See, forinstance, Saskia as Flora, 1634, oil on canvas, 125 x 101 cm, The State Hermitage Museum,
St. Petersburg. For the pastoral tradition in the Dutch Republic, see Alison McNeil Kettering,“Rembrandt’s ‘Flute Player’: A Unique Treatment of a Pastoral,” Simiolus 9, no. 1 (1977):
19–44; Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its Audience in theGolden Age (Montclair, 1983); and Peter van den Brink, ed., Het Gedroomde Land: Pastoraleschilderkunst in de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat. Utrecht, Centraal Museum) (Zwolle, 1993). For
Dordrecht, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Albert Cuyp (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National
Gallery of Art; London, National Gallery; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New York, 2001).
5. Flinck, Shepherdess, 1636, oil on canvas, 74.5 x 63.5 cm, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum,
Braunschweig. Flinck turned to the depiction of half-length shepherds and shepherdesses ona number of occasions in the late 1630s and 1640s. See Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke,
Govaert Flinck (1615–1660) (Amsterdam, 1965), nos. 127–46; Werner Sumowksi, Gemälde
der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau, 1983–94), 2: nos. 655–56; Alison McNeil Kettering,
The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its Audience in the Golden Age (Montclair, 1983), 64, 78;
Peter van den Brink, ed., Het Gedroomde Land: Pastorale schilderkunst in de Gouden Eeuw
(Exh. cat. Utrecht, Centraal Museum) (Zwolle, 1993), nos. 23a and 23b. For Rembrandt’s
pastoral subjects, see Alison McNeil Kettering, “Rembrandt’s ‘Flute Player’: A Unique
Treatment of a Pastoral,” Simiolus 9, no. 1 (1977): 19–44; Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch
Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its Audience in the Golden Age (Montclair, 1983), 61–62; 95–100.
Rembrandt never rendered a multi-figure pastoral scene in a painting.
6. The association between the shepherd and flute playing can be traced back to antiquity. In
Virgil’s first Eclogue, for example, the shepherd’s occupation was “to brood on his slim pipe
over the muse of the woodland.” The shepherdess’s activity was analogous to that of hercompanion. Garland making was an activity of leisure, indicative of the idyllic, rustic life, but
the wreath itself also served as a symbol of love. Both objects carried sexual associations:the flute was perceived to have phallic connotations, while the wreath or garland was a
symbol of the female genitals, as well as a woman’s virginity. See Alison McNeil
Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its Audience in the Golden Age (Montclair,
1983), 92–95; and Eric Jan Sluijter, “De entree van de amoureuze herderidylle in de NoordNederlandse prent- en schilderkunst,” in Het Gedroomde Land: Pastorale schilderkunst in de
Gouden Eeuw, ed. Peter van den Brink (Exh. cat. Utrecht, Centraal Museum) (Zwolle, 1993),
33–56.
7. In the visual tradition, many Dutch images of shepherds had their roots in the sixteenthcentury Venetian concert champêtre, as seen in works by Giorgione and Palma Vecchio. As
Alison McNeil Kettering has noted, Dutch images tended to differ from the melancholic moodof their Italian predecessors. Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its
Audience in the Golden Age (Montclair, 1983), 92–95.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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8. These texts predominantly appeared in the period between 1618 and 1648. For a summary of
Dutch pastoral literature, as well as Crispijn de Passe’s engravings, see Alison McNeil
Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its Audience in the Golden Age (Montclair,
1983), 19–31, 75–77; and Peter van den Brink, ed., Het Gedroomde Land: Pastoraleschilderkunst in de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat. Utrecht, Centraal Museum) (Zwolle, 1993).
9. For a discussion of the emergence of the image of the shepherd pair in a landscape in the
Netherlands, see Eric Jan Sluijter, “De entree van de amoureuze herderidylle in de NoordNederlandse prent- en schilderkunst,” in Het Gedroomde Land: Pastorale schilderkunst in de
Gouden Eeuw, ed. Peter van den Brink (Exh. cat. Utrecht, Centraal Museum) (Zwolle, 1993),
33–56. An early example is Jacob Matham after Hendrick Goltzius, Cordion and Sylvia, ca.
1600, engraving, 477 x 343 mm, Art Institute of Chicago.
10. For Bloemaert’s image, see Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its
Audience in the Golden Age (Montclair, 1983), 87; Peter van den Brink, ed., Het Gedroomde
Land: Pastorale schilderkunst in de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat. Utrecht, Centraal Museum)(Zwolle, 1993), no. 34. Abraham Bloemaert based his painting on a print series of pastoral
subjects executed by Cornelis Bloemaert II (1603–84) in around 1625, titled Otia delectant.
11. The eroticism of this gesture likely reflected Flinck’s awareness of Rembrandt’s etching ofa Flute Player from 1642, a work that Alison McNeil Kettering first associated with GF-101 in
1977. Although Kettering described certain iconographic and compositional similarities
between Rembrandt’s and Flinck’s images, she did not point out the considerable
differences between them. In Rembrandt’s print, the grisly looking shepherd lies on his
stomach playing a transverse flute as he looks unabashedly up the shepherdess’s skirt.
Although both forms of the flute—the upright recorder, or flute à bec, and the horizontally
played transverse flute—had implied phallic connotations, Rembrandt’s positioning of the
shepherd at the feet of the shepherdess and the suggestive angle of the flute conveyed amore explicit sexual intent. As Kettering has argued, this act of “crude voyeurism” was asignificant departure from traditional pastoral iconography, and it is markedly absent from
Flinck’s image. See Alison McNeil Kettering, “Rembrandt’s ‘Flute Player’: A Unique
Treatment of a Pastoral,” Simiolus 9, no. 1 (1977): 19–44, particularly 41–42; Werner
Sumowksi, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), 2: no.
635; Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its Audience in the Golden
Age (Montclair, 1983), 88, 98, 162 n. 68. Flinck’s image also anticipates the more overtly
erotic pastoral images that appeared after 1650 in the work of genre painters such as Caspar
Netscher (ca. 1639[?]–84) and Adriaen van der Werff (1659–1722). See, for instance, Adriaen
van der Werff, Shepherd and Shepherdess in a Landscape, 1689, oil on panel, 59 x 48 cm,
Gemäldegalerie Dresden.
12. This approach is particularly evident in Flinck’s handling of the shepherd. Infrared images
reveal a fluid and confident underdrawing for the shepherd’s head, hair, and garment. See© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Elegant Shepherdess Listening to a Shepherd Playing the Recorderin an Arcadian Landscape
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Technical Summary for further discussion.
13. Although the last digit of the date in the lower-left corner is indistinct, this work has
consistently been dated to 1654, a date that corresponds to Flinck’s more mature,classicizing style. In that same year, Flinck received a commission to complete an allegorical
portrait for Amalia van Solms’s apartment at the Huis den Bosch, Hope Comes to Amalia van
Solms at the Tomb of Frederik Hendrik, 1654, oil on canvas, 307 x 189 cm, Royal Cabinet of
Paintings, Mauritshuis, The Hague.
14. See, for instance, Jacob Backer, Granida and Daiflo, ca. 1637, oil on canvas, 125 x 161.5 cm,
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; Jacob van Loo, Amarillis Crowning Mirtillo, ca.
1650, oil on canvas, 161 x 192 cm, Instituut Collectie Nederland, Amsterdam.
15. Bol’s painting, which was formerly known as Bacchus and Ariadne, has been identified more
recently as a portrait historié of the Amsterdam couple Leonard Winnincx (1616–91) and his
wife, Helena van den Heuvel (1638–98). The couple married in 1664. Their choice to be
portrayed in the guise of mythological figures—and Frans Grijzenhout’s recent determinationthat the painting hung prominently above the mantel in their salon—demonstrates the
popularity and currency of these themes among Amsterdam’s elite in the second half of theseventeenth century. See Frans Grijzenhout, “Ferdinand Bol’s ‘portrait historié’ in the
Hermitage: Identification and Interpretation,” Simiolus 34, no. 1 (2009/2010), 33–49.
16. The size and format of GF-101 suggest that it was intended to be hung above a chimney orover mantel. Its pastoral subject matter would have easily found a receptive audience in thesophisticated circle of patrons—perhaps courtly circles—that Flinck knew and worked for in thisperiod. See Tom van der Molen and Valentina Vlasic, Govert Flinck—Reflecting History (Exh.
cat. Kleve, Museum Kurhaus Kleve) (Kleve, 2015), 127, 137, no. 21; and Eric Jan Sluijter,“Out of Rembrandt’s Shadow: Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol as History Painters,”in Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck—Rembrandt’s Master Pupils, ed. Norbert Middelkoop andDavid DeWitt (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 2017), 110–12, cat. no. 29, fig. 132. For Flinck’s networks as apainter, see Erna Kok, “Govert Flinck, Ferdinand Bol and Their Network of Influential
Clients,” in Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck—Rembrandt’s Master Pupils, ed. Norbert
Middelkoop and David DeWitt (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum; Amsterdam,
Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 2017), 58–79.

ProvenancePossibly Jan Steen (1625/6–79), Leiden (his sale, Alkmaar, 12 August 1750, no. 8).
Anthonie H.G. Fokker (1890–1939), by 1938; thence by descent (sale, Amsterdam, 8 May© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Elegant Shepherdess Listening to a Shepherd Playing the Recorderin an Arcadian Landscape
Page 9 of 112007, no. 73 [Johnny van Haeften Ltd., London]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007.

Exhibition History
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 1939–45, on loan with the permanent collection [lent by the heirsof A.H.G. Fokker].
Kleve, Museum Kurhaus Kleve, “Govert Flinck—Reflecting History,” 4 October 2015–17
January 2016, no. 21 [lent by the present owner].
Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis. “Ferdinand Bol
and Govert Flinck—Rembrandt’s Master Pupils, 13 October 2017–18 February 2018, no. 29[lent by the present owner].

References
Von Moltke, Joachim Wolfgang. Govaert Flinck, 1615–1660. Amsterdam, 1965, 97, no. 147,
plate 30.
Kettering, Alison McNeil. “Rembrandt’s Flute Player: A Unique Treatment of a
Pastoral.” Simiolus 9, no. 1 (1977): 41–42, no. 24.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden. 6 vols. Landau andPfalz, 1983–94, 2: 1025, no. 635.
Schatborn, Peter, and Leonore van Sloten. Old Drawings, New Names: Rembrandt and His
Contemporaries. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rembrandt House Museum. Amsterdam, 2014, 79,
fig. 21b.
Van der Molen, Tom, and Valentina Vlasic. Govert Flinck—Reflecting History. Exh. cat. Kleve,
Museum Kurhaus Kleve. Kleve, 2015, 127, 137, no. 21.
Sluijter, Eric Jan. “Out of Rembrandt’s Shadow: Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol as History
Painters.” In Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck—Rembrandt’s Master Pupils. Edited by Norbert
Middelkoop and David DeWitt, 110, fig. no. 132, 228, cat no. 29. Exh. cat. Amsterdam,
Amsterdam Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis. Zwolle, 2017.
Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the GoldenAge.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 38.
Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Elegant Shepherdess Listening to a Shepherd Playing the Recorderin an Arcadian Landscape
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in French and Arabic.]

Versions
Print

1. Abraham Blooteling after Govaert Flinck, A Couple of Young Shepherds, ca. 1655–90,
etching and engraving, 283 x 355 mm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-BI-1847.

Technical Summary
The painting was executed on a plain, open-weave canvas of medium weight. The canvas had
been lined previously with a wax adhesive. This lining was removed and replaced with a gluepaste lining in 2016. At some point in the painting’s history, the tacking margins had been opened
up and incorporated into the picture plane, expanding the size of the painting slightly. During therelining in 2016, the tacking margins on the top and sides were folded back over the stretcher,and along the bottom approximately half of the tacking margin was folded over the stretcher.
Therefore the painting is now close to its original dimensions, but remains slightly expanded along
the bottom edge.
The fabric support was prepared with a dark reddish-brown ground. Infrared photographs show afairly detailed underdrawing executed in liquid medium for the shepherd, but not for the
shepherdess. Flinck left the underdrawing exposed in some areas, for example in the drapery.
The infrared photograph also reveals several small artist’s changes, the most significant being an
adjustment to lower the shepherdess’s garment on her proper right shoulder and breast.
The paint was applied thinly and has become more translucent with time. Flinck left the warm
ground exposed, or covered it with translucent glazes in some areas, such as the blue drapery
and the landscape in the upper-left quadrant. Impasto is limited to highlights in the foregroundlandscape, flowers, and flesh.
The painting is in good condition. There is a vertical tear in the upper-left quadrant above thesheep and an L-shaped tear to the right of the shepherd’s head. There are also two diagonallinear paint losses in the vessel in the right foreground, and other small, scattered losses
throughout the composition. The paint has suffered some abrasion as well. The painting wastreated in 2014 to resaturate the varnish and inpaint losses, and again in 2016 to remove thelining and replace it with a more suitable one, as well as to remove and replace the varnish andinpainting.

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This summary is based on an examination report by Simon Howell and Rachel Carey-Thomas
dated December 4, 2012; a treatment report by Kirsten Younger dated January 8, 2014; notesfrom Timothy John Watson on treatment dated December 6, 2016, and December 20, 2016; andundated technical notes by Annette Rupprecht.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection