The support is a copper plate with a tin coating on both sides. The paint is applied evenly on a light ground. A greyish brown underpaint appears to be present in the landscape.

Fair. There is some abrasion in several areas of the background. Small paint losses are visible throughout, possibly as the result of blistering due to corrosion. There are some minor discoloured retouchings, and the thick varnish has discoloured.

…; sale, Gijsbert de Clercq (1850-1911), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 1 June 1897, no. 42, bought in; from Gijsbert de Clercq to the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1899;¹¹Verslagen 1901, p. 13; note RMA. from the Vereniging Rembrandt, fl. 200, to the museum, March 1901

Object number: SK-A-1945

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

This is one of the few signed paintings by Pieter van Laer. An etching after it, which shows the washerwoman and the shepherd in the foreground on a slightly smaller scale, was made by Cornelis Visscher (c. 1628/29-1658).⁴⁴Hollstein XL, 1992, p. 91, no. 74. The print is considered to be a companion piece to Visscher’s etching The Hunters, which was also executed after a painting by Van Laer.⁵⁵Hollstein XL, 1992, p. 79, no. 63.

Hoogewerff suggested that a drawing might have been the source for the shepherd, whose pose appears to be based on one of the most famous ancient statues in Rome, the Spinario.⁶⁶Rome, Musei Capitolini. Levine noted that the washerwoman in the background repeats a motif commonly found on Roman sarcophagi.⁷⁷Levine in Turner 1996, XVIII, p. 623. The figure of the Spinario also reappears in a picture in Vienna, which supports the hypothesis that it might have been based on a drawing.⁸⁸Hoogewerff 1933, p. 113. However, apart from a drawing of a seated figure which Philips Wouwerman used in A Landscape with a Cottage and a Shepherd, no drawings by Pieter van Laer can be related to paintings.⁹⁹Schatborn in Amsterdam 1981, pp. 62-63.

Briganti dated the present painting to after Van Laer’s return to Holland in 1639.¹⁰¹⁰Briganti 1950, p. 197. Ledermann, on the other hand, suggested that it was painted during Van Laer’s stay in Rome in the 1630s.¹¹¹¹Ledermann 1920, p. 187, note 11. There is only one dated painting by Van Laer and little is known about his activity after his return from Rome.¹²¹²See Biography. However, the tin coating with which the copper support was prepared indicates a date during Van Laer’s stay in Rome, as such coatings seem to have been used only in Italy.¹³¹³See the entry on SK-A-4825 and Horovitz 1998, pp. 67-68.

Taco Dibbits, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 164.

Janeck 1968, pp. 69-70, no. A.I.1, with earlier literature; Blankert in Utrecht 1965 (1978), pp. 24-25; Levine 1988, pp. 570-71; Levine in Turner 1996, XVIII, p. 623

1903, p. 154, no. 1403; 1934, p. 159, no. 1403; 1976, p. 332, no. A 1945; 2007, no. 164

T. Dibbits, 2007, 'Pieter Bodding van Laer, A Shepherd and Washerwomen at a Spring, c. 1630 - c. 1637', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20029319