Paesaggio con pastori e armenti

The painting is attributed to Crescenzio Onofri and dated towards the close of the seventeenth century. The gentle landscape, framed by trees and animated by small figures and animals, develops on several planes. In the lower part, on the banks of a river are a fisherman and two shepherds with their flocks. A small waterfall borders a stretch of plain with pastureland, crops and, on the left, a farmhouse. In the background the soft outline of the hills surrounding the Roman countryside can be seen.
The classical landscape introduced in Rome by Annibale Carracci and his pupils rapidly gained popularity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as evidenced by the works of Dughet, van Bloemen, and other painters in the Bank of Italy’s collection. The ‘ideal’ landscape of the first half of the seventeenth century established formulaic compositions that provided a model for many Italian and foreign artists. The success and the spread of this genre of painting, partly due to public demand and the tastes of private patrons, were assured by great masters such as Pietro da Cortona, Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain and, last but not least, Gaspard Dughet, under whom Onofri trained.