(Otterberg 1631–1685 Frankfurt am Main)
A shepherd and shepherdess with cattle in a southern landscape, signed and dated lower left: JROOS, fecit 1673.31. D.,
oil on canvas, 106.8 x 130.9 cm, framed

Provenance:
Art dealer, Hamburg (1819);
Georg Wilhelm Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe, Bückeburg (after 1819);
Wolrad Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe, Bückeburg (1955);
Philipp Ernst Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe (1985)

Exhibited:
Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserslautern and Theodor-Zink-Museum, Kaiserslautern, Der Tiermaler Johann Heinrich Roos, Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, October- December 1985

Literature:
H. Jedding, Der Tiermaler Johann Heinrich Roos, in: Studien zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, vol. 311, Kehl 1955, p. 229, no. 91;
cat. Der Tiermaler Johann Heinrich Roos, Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, exhibition catalogue, Kaiserslautern 1985, p. 120, cat. no. 29

The present painting was traditionally regarded as a self-portrait of the artist and his wife. However, Hermann Jedding has hypothesised that it may depict a scene from the Old Testament (Ruth and Boaz or Jacob and Rachel). The painting was owned by the princely House of Schaumburg-Lippe from 1819 until after 1985. It was listed in Jedding’s 1955 catalogue raisonné and displayed in the first major Roos exhibition in 1985. In 1824 Goethe wrote about the “Raphael of all livestock painters”: “Roos is indefatigable in his diligent drawing of the wool and hairs of his goats and sheep, and the endless details show that during the work he enjoyed the purest bliss and did not think about completion”. Roos’ favourite motif was the pastoral idyll, the peaceful coexistence of man and animals, combining genre and landscape painting. Since he never went to Italy, he used Roman architectural motifs copied from copper engravings for his backgrounds.