"Dutch School (xviiith Century) - Shepherd Taking A Bull Across The River"
Dutch school (XVIIIth century) Oil on panel 33 x 22 cm (39 x 28 cm with the frame) Signed lower center with the monogram "JR" There is a composition engraved by Jean Jacques de Boissieu in 1772 and given to Jacob van Ruisdael at the time. Prints are kept in particular at the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Behind the monogram “JR” shouldn't we rather see Johann Heinrich Roos? This lively landscape is very much in the Dutch tradition of the 17th century. The beautiful colors of the sky, the trees, the bull and the small houses drawn in a naturalistic way, the beautiful distance with subtle sketched details (hills, houses, trees, figures and animals) are characteristic. German painter of the 17th century but raised in Amsterdam, Johann Heinrich Roos was a pupil of Karel Dujardin and, like him, became one of the most important German animal painters of the end of the 17th century. In 1657 he moved to Frankfurt. Then he became a painter for the elector Karl Ludwig. He also painted Elector Johann Philipp von Mainz and many distinguished people at the court of Kassel. His many sketchbooks are filled with drawings of landscapes, grazing cattle and scenes of shepherds. His contemporaries such as Joachim von Sandrart and Henrich Sebastian Hüsgen praised his mastery for his landscapes with excellent depictions of animals. Roos continued Dutch realism in Germany. The nature, the character of each animal is designed with the greatest truth, the movement, the design of the limbs, the color of the fur are very well copied from reality. Characteristic is his depiction of animal bodies, which he often held in rather unusual positions such as rear views. His landscapes were often the Rhine Valley and Heidelberg. His works are present all over the world and in particular in German and Austrian museums (Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, Alte Pinakothek in Munich, Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt ...)