The Three Droves

The sun is low, the shadows are long, and the herdsmen are heading home. Berchem signed this panel and dated it 1656. Its Dutch title means The Three Herds, after the groups of cattle and sheep being driven through the evening countryside, with a young shepherd pushing his flock forward. The low inventory number, SK-A-29, points to how early it arrived. The museum bought it in 1808. That was the year Louis Bonaparte, whom his brother Napoleon had made King of Holland, moved the national art collection to Amsterdam and turned it into his Royal Museum, the institution that grew into the Rijksmuseum. The panel has been in the collection through every change of name since.