A Wooded Landscape with Peasants in a Horse-Drawn Cart Travelling Down a Flooded Road
A Wooded Landscape with Peasants in a Horse-Drawn Cart Travelling Down a Flooded Road, though the date is now unreadable, is an exceptional example characteristic of Siberechts’ production during his Antwerp period. These paintings of noble peasants, completed between 1661 and 1672, drew strongly on the rustic way of life that he had observed in Flanders and are generally considered to represent his best works. The recurrence of scenes showing fords or flooded roads through which peasants wade with their cattle, hay wagons and carts laden with vegetables demonstrate Siberechts’ predilection for portraying such motifs. These compositions not only display his great skill as a genre painter, but also enabled him to masterfully depict the iridescence of light on moving water. In the present work, the water is gently splashed about by the hooves of the horse and cart as it picks its way through the flood, the light catching the disturbed waters.
