Landscape Of Ruins With Shepherds And Flock – Cajetan Roos (1690-1770) – 73x132cm

Landscape of Ruins with Shepherds and Flock – Cajetan Roos (1690-1770) – 73x132cm. A large and beautiful oil on canvas depicting a vast panoramic Italianate landscape, typical of the style of Cajetan Roos, heir to one of the greatest dynasties of Baroque animal and landscape painters. The composition is organized into several successive planes of great depth. In the foreground on the left, a lively group of shepherds and shepherdesses accompanies a flock of cows, goats, sheep, and donkeys at the edge of a shallow body of water. The animals, rendered with a care and realism characteristic of the Roos family tradition, occupy a quarter of the composition and testify to the painter's talent for observing animals. In the center, a scene animates the composition: a rider on a white horse drinks from the shallow water with his dog at his side. The bridge in the center has just been crossed by several figures and animals. In the center, a building that appears to be in ruins stands guard over the scene. To the far right of the composition, in the middle ground, a shepherd tends his sheep. The background is dominated by an imposing citadel perched on a rocky promontory, its crenellated towers silhouetted against a dramatic and turbulent sky. This ruined architecture evokes the landscapes of the Roman countryside or the area surrounding Rome, a constant source of inspiration for the painter. The carefully rendered sky occupies nearly the upper third of the work. The overall palette plays on the contrasts between the deep browns of the terrain, the dark greens of the vegetation, and the luminosity of the clouds and sky, according to the conventions of 18th-century Italianate Baroque landscape painting. The painter: Cajetan Roos (1690–1770) Cajetan Roos, also known as Gaetano Rosa or Gaetano de Rosa, was born in Rome in 1690 and died in Vienna in 1770. He was the son of Philipp Peter Roos (known as Rosa da Tivoli) and the grandson of Johann Heinrich Roos, thus forming one of the most remarkable dynasties of European Baroque landscape and animal painting. After his father's death in 1706, he settled in Vienna, where he pursued a distinguished career until the end of his life. His work differs from that of his father in the prominent place given to landscape, with animals naturally integrated into expansive and airy compositions, faithful to the spirit of the idealized Roman countryside. His works are held in several leading public institutions: the National Museum in Krakow (Poland), the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (Barcelona), and the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Paris). The canvas was relined some time ago, attesting to the long-standing and careful conservation of the work. The frame is a modern, simple, gilded frame, well-suited to the horizontal format of the canvas.