Landscape with peasant women and herds

Nicolaes Berchem was a Dutchman, and this warm southern countryside is largely a thing of the imagination. He belonged to a generation of Golden Age painters who fell for Italy, real or dreamed, and spent their careers turning out sunlit hills, herders and cattle in a soft golden light that Holland's flat grey skies never offered. Buyers in Amsterdam loved these scenes precisely because they were an escape, a warm south you could hang on a cold wall. Berchem worked fast and painted a great deal, and shepherdesses driving their animals home at the close of the day were among his favourite subjects. There is a small irony in where this one settled. The painted daydream of Italy now hangs in Italy, in Venice, among the pictures of the century that produced it.