Landscape with Resting Cavaliers and a Shepherd with his Flock

A shallow pond in a wide open landscape serves as the drinking place for a herdsman’s flock of sheep. Along the left bank, two soldiers and their horses are equally using the pond as a place to repose. More figures can be distinguished on the slope to the left, and in the right background, a little village is situated.

This drawing, executed in brush and gray ink, was made by the eighteenth century Dutch draftsman Nicolaes Aartman. Aartman produced numerous designs for book illustrations as well as small-scale independent drawings. This little genre scene may have been intended as an artwork in its own right. Aartman likely drew the scene from his imagination, using well-established motifs, such as the herd and the woman seated on a mule, to construct an elegant and picturesque Arcadian landscape – a theme that was highly fashionable at the time.