Jan Both, 'A Rocky Landscape with an Ox-cart', about 1640-5

A shaft of light from the low sun seems to point the way forward for the ox cart between the craggy cliffs. Long-haired goats chew on the brittle leaves of scrubby plants, but there’s lush greenery on the distant hillside above the lake.

The cart is laden with household goods resting on straw, suggesting either that the driver is moving house or that he’s a travelling trader, people who hawked their wares throughout the countryside. They would have been rare but welcome visitors in remote areas, such as the one Jan Both portrays here – perhaps explaining the interest of the man in the white tunic.

After a climb up the steep path from the lake below, the squeak of wheels and the creak of the loaded cart cease for a moment. The oxen are given a moment’s pause while the driver turns to two goatherds. Judging by his open mouth, he’s shouting – but he doesn’t disturb the men or the tranquillity of the idyllic landscape. In the background, ancient towers overlook the waters of a stream rippling against rocky banks and the deep forest rises up steeply towards a cloudy sky.

Behind the ox cart, two horsemen take a different route. Horses are uncommon in Both’s painting of the Italian countryside, and so is one of the riders. Led by a groom on foot, he’s richly dressed and has another rider, less grand, behind him, probably a servant. Both’s rural characters usually ride mules and represent the hard life of a peasant both in Italy and in his own country, the Dutch Republic.

This picture of a rocky, inhospitable scene is painted with great attention to detail and in the soft colours that Both favoured. If lit with the cold northern light of the Dutch Republic the landscape might be grim and forbidding, but Both’s warm lighting turns it into a rustic delight that would appeal to a Dutch merchant living in a busy city.

During Both’s three year stay in Rome he befriended Claude, the great French landscape painter. Claude’s style influenced the young Both, which can be seen in this picture: a gold evening or early morning light, deep shadow in the foreground and a misty distance, hidden castles and towers, and slender birch trees with a fine tracery of leaves against the sky.

Both differed from Claude in the portrayal of characters. Claude almost always took a mythical or biblical incident, placing idealised figures in the scene but featuring the landscape more prominently. Jan Both occasionally did the same, but he preferred the realism of recognisable contemporary people doing familiar, and sometimes amusing, things.