Nicolaes Berchem, A Peasant playing a Hurdy-Gurdy to a Woman and Child

Picked out in the glow of a soft evening light, a sleepy toddler lies on his mother’s lap, his eyes half closed, one chubby arm dangling at his side. His mother smiles down at him, the last of the sun catching her wide brow and her white shawl. A stray lock of hair tickles her neck and a soft, round cap sits on her head. She holds something, perhaps a toy, perhaps a russet apple. The little boy reaches for it half-heartedly, as if too sleepy to make the effort to grab. The woman’s skirt is a rich deep blue, often the colour of the Virgin Mary’s skirt in religious paintings. Beside them a man leans forward with a smile, lulling the child to sleep with a tune on his hurdy-gurdy, a folk instrument. In his red shirt, big hat and sturdy shoes, his cloak thrown over his shoulder, the man is likely to be a travelling musician.

Painted on mahogany to ensure smooth brushstrokes, Berchem still reveals his expertise in showing textures, contrasting the white linen sleeve of the little boy with the shaggy coat of the neighbouring goat, the glint of metal on the hurdy-gurdy and the man’s rough cloak.

The painting is Berchem at his most lyrical, a picture intended to radiate peace and comfort. He places the group in the protection of trees, but shows enough of the distance to perhaps suggest a long journey; the journey to Egypt made by the holy family – the Virgin Mary, Joseph and Jesus – may have been in his mind. The animals around them are solid and reassuring. The warm golden brown of the recumbent cow makes a comfortable and sympathetic background to mother and child, as it glances up at the hurdy-gurdy with a questioning eye. The man’s dog looks up open-mouthed, maybe howling in unison with his master. The sheep are undisturbed but the goats with their long, curved horns are more interested in the curling leaves in the foreground.

We don‘t know whether Berchem ever went to Italy, but he knew other painters who did, and who brought back drawings and prints of the softer environment of the Mediterranean. They, like Berchem, used them as a source for painting the Italianate pictures so popular in the Dutch Republic at the time. Religious images weren’t permitted in Dutch Protestant churches, but were appreciated in many families. A painting like this may well have have been recognised as alluding to the holy family, but would have been loved for the pastoral serenity of the scene too.