
''Italian Landscape with Draughtsman'', 1650,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
'Jan Dirksz Both' (between 1610 and 1618,
Utrecht -
Aug 9 1652, Utrecht), brother of
Andries Both, was a
Dutch painter.
From
1634 to
1637 he was taught by
Bloemaert and the painter
Gerard van Honthorst before travelling to
Rome ca. 1637. There he met the French painter
Claude Lorrain, with whom he collaborated on a series of landscape paintings. His landscapes are typically peopled by peasants driving cattle or travellers gazing on Roman ruins in the light of the evening sun The everyday life of the streets of Rome became a favourite theme in his works. On his return to Utrecht after the death of his brother in 1642, he stopped producing genre pieces and focused instead on pictures of Italian landscapes bathed in a warm, golden light. This theme was adopted by several other Dutch painters, the
Italianites.