Pastoral Landscape with Ruins

With its warm southern sunlight and leisurely interactions between herders, this painting of the Italian countryside would have affirmed urban Dutch perceptions of rural areas as places of innocence and peace. The son of a painter, Adriaen van de Velde was also inspired by the cattle pieces of Paulus Potter and the Italianate pastoral scenes of Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem. He achieved a harmonious balance of elements by studying the landscape from life as well as by sketching the cattle in the pasture and the human figures in the studio.