Shepherdess Riding on a Donkey, plate 2 from Four Landscapes
c. 1649-58
Medium
Etching and ngraving on paper
Dimensions
26.5 × 21.3 cm (10 7/16 × 8 7/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
96288
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
A celebrated professional engraver and draftsman, Cornelis Visscher II produced almost 200 engravings in a mere 10 years of artistic activity, including portraits and genre scenes of his own design. He is known for his firm rendering of forms, as evidenced here by the warming sunlight that falls along the contours of the woman’s face and body, shading the donkey on which she sits. A tender gesture between man and woman heightens the sense of drama in an otherwise placid pastoral scene.
About the Artist
Cornelis Visscher · 1629–1658
Cornelis Visscher (1629–1658) was a Dutch Golden Age engraver, draughtsman, and printmaker born in Haarlem, the brother of fellow artists Jan de Visscher and Lambert Visscher. Little is known of his early life, but he studied under the Haarlem painter and engraver Pieter Claesz Soutman, with whom he closely collaborated from 1649 to 1650, producing numerous portrait engravings for Soutman's print ...