Jacob Roos, Known As Rosa Da Napoli, *shepherd With Flocks* – *bull Attacked By Dogs*

Jacob Roos, known as Rosa da Napoli (Rome, 1682 – Naples, 1730)

Shepherd at Rest with Flocks – Bull Attacked by Dogs

Oil on canvas, (1) 72 x 98 cm – framed, (1) 90 x 113 cm

This pair of paintings emblematically captures the dual style of animal painting characteristic of the Roos workshop: in the first, a shepherd rests in the shade of a large tree, lazily keeping watch over the herds surrounding him; a brown bull lies in the foreground next to a dog, while further back another bull turns its gaze toward the viewer, and, on the right, a goat climbs among the branches to graze on the leaves, with a lamb peeking out just below. In the background, beyond a hill, a fortified village and a ruined tower are visible, rendered with loose brushstrokes against a sky streaked with large white clouds. The second painting completely reverses the emotional tone: the bull, this time depicted in profile and imposing at the center of the scene, is attacked by a pack of hunting dogs that lunge at him, growling, while another bull flees in the background toward a stream. Here, too, ancient ruins and a turreted village appear, but the light grows darker and the composition tighter, built around the diagonal formed by the struggling animals, in a crescendo of tension that stands in stark contrast to the bucolic tranquility of the first canvas.

The two works are attributed to Jacob Roos, also known as “Rosa di Napoli,” born in Rome in March 1682, the eldest son of Philipp Peter Roos, the famous “Rosa da Tivoli,” the founder of a successful dynasty of animal and landscape painters originally from Frankfurt and active in Italy since 1680. Raised in his father’s workshop—whose artistic roots lay with Johann Heinrich Roos—Jacob inherited his father’s narrative style and sensitivity to the effects of light, developing a chromatically vibrant style of painting that also drew on the Roman landscape tradition cultivated by figures such as Domenico Brandi. After moving to Naples, he established an independent career there while remaining faithful to his father’s stylistic hallmarks to such an extent that, as Bénézit notes, it is often difficult to distinguish the son’s works from those of his father: it is no coincidence that this very pair of canvases appeared on the art market attributed to Philip Roos, further evidence of how much the two painters’ work tends to overlap.

A comparison with documented works, however, allows us to attribute the paintings to Jacob’s catalog: the canvas depicting a Shepherd with Animals, housed at the National Museum in Kraków, displays the same quality in the rendering of the animals and a similar color palette in the background landscape, while the pair depicting *Peasant Festival* and *Herds*, now in a private collection, features architectural and naturalistic backgrounds entirely comparable to those examined here, with the same ruined towers and the same hilltop villages that recur as a distinctive hallmark of his mature work.