A milk maid churning butter in a barn interior

Govert Camphuyzen was a versatile artist who mastered different genres. He is best known for paintings reminiscent of the work of Paulus Potter, of whom he was a contemporary, but his oeuvre also consists of portraits, tavern and barn scenes and a wide range of still lifes. They can be found in many important museums such as the Wallace Collection, the Rijksmuseum, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Only relatively recently the artist's oeuvre has been reconstructed, as during the 19th century much of it was given to Camphuyzen's father, Dirck Rafelsz. (1586-1627), who initially worked as a painter, but aged eighteen gave up art to become a cleric and poet. It was only in 1860 that Willem Burger pointed out that Dirck Rafelsz. could not, as was then generally supposed, have taught Paulus Potter, as he had in fact died only two years after his birth. Only in 1903 did Ernst Moes and Abraham Bredius distinguish between the various oeuvres of the Camphuyzen family. Govert was the youngest of two brothers. He spent more than ten years in Sweden, where – amongst for others – he painted in the service of Queen Widow Maria Eleonora in Nyköping and subsequently was court painter to Queen Hedwig Eleonora in Stockholm, where he resided until moving back to Amsterdam in 1665.

Camphuyzen’s other known barn scenes are comparable in composition and size, but here its figures exhibit traits that recall Camphuyzen's majestic Farmer and milkmaid with life stock in the private collection of Otto baron Ramel in Övedskloster, which the artist must have executed when in Sweden. Also here, the protagonist looks directly at the beholder. The picture conveys the artist’s attention to detail, such as the still life arrangement of domestic objects in the left foreground, where the various vessels and their specific wear and tear have themselves become the subject. To the right a glimpse is offered of two men conversing outside, one wearing the same red headdress as the farmer in Övedskloster, possibly further suggesting an execution of this canvas during Camphuyzen’s Swedish sojourn.

Professor Dr Albert Blankert is a renowned art historian in the field of the Dutch Golden Age. During his academic tenure in Utrecht, and as professor at Yale, Cambridge and in Leiden, he has contributed profoundly to our knowledge of Dutch Italianized and Caravaggist painters, Rembrandt and Dutch classicism in the 17th century. Foremost, prof dr Blankert is among the most authoritative Johannes Vermeer scholars and has written extensively on Vermeer's art and Dutch painting.