LISSE, Dirck van der
(b. 1607, Breda, d. 1669, Den Haag)

Blind Man's Buff

1635
Oil on canvas, 120 x 140 cm
Staatliche Slösser und Gärten, Jagdschloss Grunewald, Berlin

In the 1620s and 1630s, Dutch aristocrats furthered a new vogue for particular kinds of history and portrait painting, of 'pastoral' scenes involving the loves of shepherds and shepherdesses in lush, idealized landscapes. In 1635, four painters made a series of pastoral paintings for the Stadhouder's court, chronicling the popular story of Amarillis and Mirtillo. In a scene contributed by van der Lisse (one of the numerous followers of Cornelis Poelenburgh), maidens play blind man's buff with the blindfolded shepherd Mirtillo.