Pastoral landscapes, attributed to Jacob Roos, dit Rosa da Napoli (1682 – 1730)

Jacob Roos, called Rosa da Napoli (Rome, 1682 – Naples, 1730)
Resting Shepherd with Flocks – Bull Attacked by Dogs
Oil on canvas, (1) 72 x 98 cm – framed, (1) 90 x 113 cm

This pair of paintings emblemizingly captures the dual register of animal painting beloved by the Roos workshop: in the first, a shepherd rests in the shade of a large tree, lazily watching over the livestock gathered around him; a brown-coated bull lies in the foreground beside a dog, while further back another bovine turns its gaze toward the viewer and, on the right, a goat climbs among the branches to graze on leaves, with a lamb emerging just below. In the background, beyond a hill, a fortified village and a ruined tower are rendered with loose brushwork against a sky filled with sweeping white clouds.

The second painting completely reverses the emotional tone: the bull, this time portrayed in profile and standing imposingly at the center of the scene, is attacked by a pack of hunting dogs lunging and snarling at it, while another bovine flees in the background toward a body of water. Here too, ancient ruins and a turreted village appear, but the light turns darker and the composition becomes tighter, built along the diagonal of fighting animal bodies in a crescendo of tension that contrasts sharply with the bucolic calm of the first canvas.

The two works are to be attributed to Jacob Roos, also known as "Rosa di Napoli", born in Rome in March 1682 as the eldest son of Philipp Peter Roos—the famous "Rosa da Tivoli"—founder of a successful dynasty of animal and landscape painters originating from Frankfurt and active in Italy from 1680. Raised in his father's workshop, which traced its artistic roots back to Johann Heinrich Roos, Jacob inherited his father's narrative flair and sensitivity for light effects, developing a chromatically vibrant style that also owed a debt to the Roman landscape tradition cultivated by figures such as Domenico Brandi.

After moving to Naples, he built an independent career while remaining faithful to his father's stylistic idioms—to the extent that, as Bénézit notes, it often proves difficult to distinguish the son's works from those of the father. Indeed, it is no coincidence that this same pair of canvases passed through the art market attributed to Philipp Roos, demonstrating how closely the production of the two painters tends to overlap.

However, comparison with documented works allows these paintings to be placed securely within Jacob's oeuvre: the canvas Shepherd with Animals preserved at the National Museum in Krakow exhibits the same quality in the rendering of the animals and an analogous color palette in the background landscape, while the pair depicting Peasant Festival and Flocks now in a private collection features architectural and naturalistic backgrounds identical to those examined here, with the same ruined towers and hilltop villages recurring as a distinctive hallmark of his mature production.