The edge of a wood at dawn: a shepherd with his flock of sheep, on the bank of a stream where it flows into a lake. Engraving by S. à Bolswert after Sir P.P. Rubens.

The painting is described by Adler as follows (left and right have to be reversed for the engraving): "[] A wood, the right-hand part of which is close to the spectator, recedes, impressively foreshortened, into the distance on the left. From it a tongue of land projects forward, flanked by confluent streams. The triangular shape of the wood, in and around which space diagonals cluster and meet at a distant vanishing-point, is paralleled by a stream, the bluish-green and whitish waters of which reflect trees and the steep sides of the projection of land. At the right-hand side of the picture, where the tree-tops are cut off by its upper edge, a tributary flows out of the dark wood, joining the main stream where the latter is obliquely cut off by the lower picture-edge. The tributary is crossed by a footbridge leading from the rocky slope at the right-hand edge to the projecting piece of land.

"The bridge reinforces the cluster of space diagonals extending to the left. The footbridge and the direct view into depth at the right-hand edge, which is soon brought to a halt by the darkness of the wood, were added by Rubens at a later stage of the picture, originally much smaller. The small central vista through the wedgeshaped forest, where a patch of sky, yellowish-red in the sunlight, is visible above the distant horizon, must have played a much more important part in the original composition than it does now. An opening, only slightly concealed by two trees, appears in the section of the forest, and the latter does not recede continuously but in three stages coinciding with planes parallel to the picture surface; the shadowy opening appears in the second of these three planes.

"The stream flows into a large lake on the left. In front of it, in the very foreground, as though on a small island with tangled vegetation in the lower left corner of the picture, is a group of three trees which, like those of the forest on the extreme right, are cut off by the upper edge. A magpie and another bird are flying from the tops of these trees towards the middle of the picture. Beyond the tree motif, which serves as a repoussoir and frames the picture on the left, can be seen in the distance two swans on the water, a cottage with a fence round it and a cart standing in front, poplars and rows of bushes in an open meadow to the left, and on the extreme left, cut off by the edge, a quarter or more of the golden disc of the sun, the lower half of which is concealed by the reddish-yellow horizon.

"The lower part of the sky is covered by delicate veils of cloud, yellowish and red; further up, it is a deep blue. It is not certain whether the sun is rising or setting, but, in view of the huntsman coursing through the forest some distance away in the centre of the picture, the time is probably dawn. Nineteen sheep are grazing on the tongue of land next to the waters of the stream in which trees are reflected. Four of them, including the ram, which is darker in colour, are at the rocky tip of the promontory. Obliquely to the right behind them, near the footbridge, is a barefooted shepherd standing on one leg leaning on a stick; he wears a broad-brimmed slouch hat and is turning his head over his left shoulder to our right. The ram behind the three sheep is looking attentively, with raised head, in the same direction."--Adler, loc. cit.

The engraving follows the finished composition of the painting as described by Adler very accurately, in reverse

[Antwerp] : Gillis Hendricx excudit, [between 1638? and 1659?]

1 print : engraving ; platemark 32 x 46 cm

Pet. Paul. Rubens pinxit. S. à Bolswert sculpsit

Wolfgang Adler, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, vol. XVIII, Landscapes and hunting scenes; part I: Landscapes, London 1982, no. 23 ("Landscape with a shepherd and his flock"), copy no. 4, pp. 92-94

Wellcome Collection 3063573i

After a painting by Rubens that was presented to the National Gallery, London in 1913 (Adler, loc. cit.). There it is currently (2018) called 'A shepherd with his flock in a woody landscape'. Adler's appellation for the present composition ("Landscape with a shepherd and his flock") is given by the National Gallery to a different painting by Rubens (Adler no. 68), and not to this one