Пейзаж с гротом и скитом

This kind of picture was made by two hands, the normal way workshops in Antwerp worked around 1625. Joos de Momper painted the great rocky grotto and the landscape falling away behind it, from brown in the foreground to blue-green in the distance, while Jan Brueghel the Younger added the small figures — the hermit reading in the cave's mouth, the pilgrims coming up the path, the dogs and birds. De Momper was the specialist everyone went to for grotto scenes, caves that shelter a holy hermit or frame a pilgrimage. The hermit here sits absorbed in a book inside a cavern far too grand for one man, the kind of wilderness retreat that appealed to buyers who would never leave the comforts of the city. The cave dwarfs him completely.