FINE ART INVESTMENTS SINCE 1978
ANTIQUE PRINTS
Nicholaes BERCHEM
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Title: "Donkey, Sheep, and Goats"
Circa: 1650
Medium: Original Copper Plate Engraving
Sheet Size: 5" x 7"
Price: $800
Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem (1 October 1620 – 18 February 1683) was a highly esteemed and
prolific Dutch Golden Age painter of pastoral landscapes, populated with mythological or
biblical figures, but also of a number of allegories and genre pieces.
He was a member of the second generation of "Dutch Italianate landscape" painters. These were
artists who travelled to Italy, or aspired to, in order to soak up the romanticism of the country,
bringing home sketchbooks full of drawings of classical ruins and pastoral imagery. His
paintings, of which he produced an immense number, (Hofstede de Groot claimed around 850,
although many are misattributed), were in great demand, as were his 80 etchings and 500
drawings. His landscapes, painted in the Italian style of idealized rural scenes, with hills,
mountains, cliffs and trees in a golden dawn are sought after. Berchem also painted inspired and
attractive human and animal figures (staffage) in works of other artists, like Allaert van
Everdingen, Jan Hackaert, Gerrit Dou, Meindert Hobbema and Willem Schellinks.