Spring Countryside Scene
Author: Unknown
Origin: Unknown
Dating: 17th century (?)
Material: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions (cm): 51 x 67,4
Inv. no.: PDdep0019
This painting depicts a rural scene, set in a shady wooded area, but which allows a view of an extensive natural landscape through a small opening in the vegetation.
In the foreground, one may observe an interesting narrative on livestock farming and the use of its resources, through the processing and treatment of wool. Thus, in the lower right corner, one may see a man crouching and holding a sheep that he is shearing. Beside him, a child helps him by holding the animal’s head, and in front of them, two fleeces (the wool of wool-bearing animals) are placed. Next to them, some sheep from the flock remain, waiting their turn. On the right side of this scene, a woman helps three young people wash four aligned fleeces.
In the background, a person can be seen in a kind of hayloft overseeing a pile of hay bales. At the same time, other workers are loading them onto a cart pulled by a pair of oxen.
“Flora in the Palace’s Collections”
«The paintings exhibited at the Ducal Palace of the Bragança […] – by an anonymous painter, and likely executed in the 17th century – are copies of engravings that were circulating at the time and that spread throughout various parts of Europe.
The original engravings are attributed to the Sadeler brothers – Johann (1550-1600), Raphael (1560/1-1628/32) e Aegidius (1555-1609) –, members of one of the most important dynasties of Flemish engravers who dominated the market in northern Europe, including the Veneto region, from the second half of the 16th century until the end of the 17th century.
The Sadeler brothers’ great reputation was precisely earned through the dissemination of these engravings on the seasons of the year which were, ultimately, reproductions of a series of paintings by Jacopo Bassano and his workshop.
Titled The Seasons, this series (1574-75), was conceived by Jacopo da Ponte, also known as Jacopo Bassano (1510-92), an influential painter of the Venetian Renaissance. The paintings focused on the seasonal tasks of rural life, depicted in a naturalistic manner that […] evoked the ideal of the joy of rural work and where everything seemed to flow orderly.
The paintings […] displayed in the Museum of Art History in Vienna, were the genesis of the engravings and of the two works found in the Ducal Palace.
[…]
Although this is a benign representation […], the truth is that harvest time was not always so. In Portugal, the category of water carrier, a man or woman who, in a group of rural workers, had the job of walking through the fields with an earthenware jug to distribute water, represented a rare moment of relief for the group that did not stop reaping under the summer heat. Thirst was aggravated by the fact that access to water was controlled by the foreman, which created situations of great tension and suffering.
The engraving of a rural scene alluding to the harvest, treading, and transport of grapes in an ox-drawn cart, through the representation of the iconic task of the early autumn grape harvest and the scattering of seeds […].»
Sasha Assis Lima
