Phillip Peter Roos Workshop

Workshop of PHILIPP PETER ROOS (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1657 - Rome, 1706); 18th century.
"Pastoral scene".
Oil on canvas.
Preserves old frame.
Measurements: 49 x 64 cm; 62 x 66.5 cm (frame).
Scene starring a flock of sheep, goats and other animals, among which we can distinguish the figure of his shepherd. This last character rests next to them, in a leisurely attitude talking with a young woman whose back is turned to the viewer. In the scene we can appreciate a great interest in capturing the qualities and anatomies of the different species of animals. The landscape, for its part, manages to situate and spatially relate all parts of the composition, and includes a small architectural element in the background on the right, something recurrent in the work of Peter Ross.
Belonging to a family of painters and engravers specialized in painting animals and landscapes, Roos left for Italy in 1677, thanks to a grant from the Landgrave of Hesse. In Rome he studied with Giacinto Brandi, and in 1684 he moved to Tivoli, the place to which he owes his Italianate nickname "Rosa of Tivoli". In 1691 he settled permanently in Rome, becoming part of the group of Dutch painters led by Pieter Laer, "Bamboccio". He places them, as here, in the Roman countryside. Roos was a member of the Schildersbent, where he earned the nickname "Mercury" due to the speed with which he painted. Although a self-portrait of him (ca. 1695-1700, Florence, Uffizi) survives, he painted almost exclusively domestic animals with their shepherds in the Roman countryside. The animals often dominate the foreground in his work, leaving only small glimpses of the landscape under a dark sky. He used a impasto painting, and an effective light treatment that gives the animals a greater corporeality, which seem to emerge from the background in semi-darkness. In the 1680s Roos often depicted small groups of animals, often headed by a billy goat with twisted horns. The shepherds appear in these works lying on one side, in coarse clothing, closely linked to the animals. In the distance, valleys with very steep cliffs alternate under different shades of golden light, typically Italian, radiating on the distant mountains of light blue tones. Works by Roos are currently held in the Prado Museum, the Fine Arts Museums of Granada, Boston and San Francisco, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Getty in Los Angeles, the Vatican Museum, the Staatliche Museum in Berlin, the Herzog-Anton-Ulrich Museum in Brunswick, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Courtauld Institute in London and the Ingres Museum in Montauban (France), among others.