Rijksmuseum

A Shepherdess

Date

1630

Medium

canvas, oil paint (paint)

Institution

Rijksmuseum

This shepherdess comes straight out of Arcadia, a fairytale realm celebrated in 17th-century Dutch poems, inhabited by beautiful shepherds and shepherdesses. These verses glorified simple country life. Artists, including Paulus Moreelse, drew inspiration from them. He painted several ‘Arcadian’ shepherds and shepherdesses, often semi-nude and adorned with flowers in their hair, like this rose-crowned shepherdess.

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