Workshop of Johann Heinrich Roos
(Otterberg 1631 – Frankfurt 1685)
Oil on canvas
2nd half of the 17th century
Original gilded frame
Canvas cm. 99 x 74 frame 116 x 91
The painting is in excellent condition
There are some very small missing parts to the painting.
The painting depicts a large hilly landscape where the remains of an ancient temple and a small rural village stand out in the center of the canvas among the thick vegetation. The scene describes a particularly serene atmosphere enlivened by some characters on the edges of a river and others near a stream, while in the foreground two horses loaded with goods and a little dog playing with its owner are clearly outlined. The magnificent panorama is characterized by the warm and cold light of a splendid sunset. The author of the canvas shows off a luministic rendering of extraordinary effect with a fiery sky behind the mountains that becomes blue in a fantastic play of colors. The treetops and thick gray clouds contribute to making the atmospheric conditions even more fascinating.
The work is attributed to a Flemish artist working in the workshop of the German Master Johann Heinrich Roos, founder of a family of pastoral landscape painters, the most famous of whom was his son Philipp Peter, known by the nickname of Rosa da Tivoli for his long stay in Lazio.
The painting is the synthesis of his painting where the landscape invariably expresses a bucolic environment with the presence of characters and animals, towers and ruins, villages and lush trees in backlight, always in an atmospheric context of great beauty.