A sheperdess with her flock in a mountainous landscape

Now in the Rijksmuseum, Pynacker's approximately 1650 shepherdess composition belongs to the pastoral tradition that combined Italianate landscape with the literary imagery of Arcadia, an imagined land of peace, natural abundance, and shepherd life derived from Theocritus, Virgil, and Renaissance pastoral poetry. The shepherdess (rather than shepherd) was a relatively unusual choice for the lead figure, introducing a feminine and perhaps more intimate mood into what was usually a male-dominated pastoral genre. Dutch collectors of the mid-seventeenth century were thoroughly familiar with pastoral themes through theatre, poetry, and emblem books, and a shepherdess in an Italian mountain landscape would have evoked the Arcadian tradition immediately. Pynacker's treatment of the mountainous terrain — steep slopes, distant peaks, warm southern light — places the shepherdess within a landscape of Virgilian grandeur, elevating her modest occupation to heroic scale. The Rijksmuseum's acquisition of this work confirms its status as a representative example of Pynacker's pastoral manner.

Oil on canvas, the shepherdess figure is positioned in the middle ground rather than the foreground, allowing the landscape's scale to dominate. Her white or light-coloured costume catches the sunlight and provides a warm highlight against the mid-tone landscape. The flock around her is described with loose, abbreviated marks of grey-white that suggest sheep without detailed anatomical description.