Landscape with a Tower

The viewer enters this countryside scene much like the faceless figure in red who, accompanied by two dogs, makes their way along the path into the village ahead. Rounding the bend from the other direction is a stream of livestock, tailed by a herdsperson in black. The leading herdsperson, accompanied by a cow, has already arrived and stands, in a relaxed manner, to speak to the figure in yellow. The latter holds a metal jug and has likely emerged from the building behind, perhaps to offer refreshment. A young child peers out from the doorway to assess the new arrivals outside. The brick buildings and foliage throughout this village are rendered with delicate daubs of paint, while intricate details such as the tiny dovecote and the drying clothes on the tall, ruined tower infuse the painting with lively detail. The sky above is peppered with birds while, below, one of the ducks in the stream dips under the water, tail in the air.  

The Dutch painter Roelof Jansz van Vries (1630/1-1681/1701) was born in Haarlem in the Netherlands where he trained as a painter of landscapes and architecture. He may have been the ‘Roelandt van Vries’ who became a member of the painters’ guild in the city of Leiden in 1653. By 1659, Vries was recorded as marrying in Amsterdam. He is primarily known as a follower of the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9–82). Van Vries’s signature was easily converted by later art dealers into the monogram of the better-known artist Ruisdael, which has complicated the matter of identifying work by Van Vries.