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Notes:
PROVENANCE:
Williams Collection, Scorrier House, Cornwall, circa 1860, and thence by descent to the present owner

EXHIBITED:
London, 1882, Royal Academy Exhibition of Old Masters (according to a label on the reverse)

Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp painted a shepherdess wearing a red tunic and straw hat, holding an houlette in a similar pose to the left of the composition in his 1627 panel, Shepherdess with a child in a landscape (Private Collection; see exhibition catalogue, Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp, Dordrechts Museum, cat. no. 6, ill. p. 95). The model for the shepherdess is also close to Cuyp's Maid with a basket of eggs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (op. cit. fig. 8, p. 18). A number of pastoral landscapes with shepherds and history paintings betray the effects of Utrecht Mannersism. It was around 1627 that Jacob's work began to be strongly influenced by Utrecht painters, especially Abraham Bloemaert and Hendrick ter Brugghen. Houbraken stated that he actually studied with Bloemaert.

Jacob collaborated with his son, Aelbert, on several paintings: three group portraits, two dated 1641 and another of 1645, and several landscapes with shepherds. In such works, Jacob painted the figures and Aelbert the landscapes.