Arcadian Landscape with a Bust of Flora

Jan van Huysum never made the trip to Italy. The Amsterdam painter, known above all for his flowers, put this southern landscape together from drawings and paintings by fellow artists who had been there, and gave it their warm, golden light. In a clearing in the forest, women and shepherds are making a sacrifice to Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, whose bust stands on a tall pedestal under the trees. Beyond them a stream runs off toward an ancient town, with rocky mountains rising behind it. Van Huysum signed the canvas at the lower left and wrote on it that he had painted it in Amsterdam in 1724 and 1725. It has a companion of exactly the same size, a second Arcadian landscape, which is also in the Mauritshuis.