Philip Peter Roos is best-known under his nickname Rosa da Tivoli.

 

He left Germany at the age of 20 and went to Rome. He lived there and in nearby Tivoli (from circa 1684 until 1691) until his early death in 1706, aged not yet 50.

 

Rosa was a man of extrimities: he drank a lot and he painted a lot. 

 

Our painting dates around 1690.

 

 

German painter active in Italy

St Goar  (Frankfurt-am-Main) 1657 – 1706 Rome 

Nicknamed “Rosa da Tivoli”.

 

Eldest son and pupil of Johann Heinrich Roos, the most important German animal and landscape painter from the second half of the 17th century, until he was surpassed by this son, Philipp Peter. 

Most European courts, especially in Russia, England and Sweden, possessed paintings by Rosa da Tivoli, which are now in numerous museums.

 

The Landgrave (Count) Ernst von Hessen-Kassel granted him in 1677, at the age of 20, a pension to go study in Rome. There he studied with a Baroque painter and decorator, whose daughter he married after he converted to Catholicism. Philipp Peter established himself around 1684 in Tivoli. He bought numerous animals, which he could study in drawing and in painting. His friends called the house with its menagerie Noah’s Ark. In 1691 Roos returned to Rome.

 

Because of his virtuous, fast technique his “Bentname” (nickname in the “Schildersbent”, the association of Northern painters from Holland, Flanders and Germany in Rome) was Mercurius. 

According to Arnold Houbraken in his “Groote Schouburgh der nederlantsche Konstschilders”, 1719, Philipp Peter Roos regularly spent days, sometimes weeks away from home, drinking in taverns. Still be it that our Rosa da Tivoli, who died at the age of 49, painted a very large amount of paintings.

 

Philipp Peter almost never signed or dated his paintings, which makes it difficult to make a of chronology of his works. Hermann Jedding, 1998, pp. 191 – 228, thinks he started painting small canvasses with few animals in the 1680-ies, then evolving towards larger paintings with more cattle and a shepherd around 1690, and finally towards the end of his life producing huge canvasses, 230 cm wide, panoramic landscapes with animals, sometimes adding packed horses or a single ox.

Rosa da Tivoli also painted a small group of hunting scenes.

 

Two of Roos’ seven children were also animal and landscape painters : 

Cajetan (“Gaetano de Rosa”) and Jacob (“Rosa da Napoli”).

 

 

Thematically our painting with the small shepherd in the background stands close to paintings from around 1690, such as the one from the Kunstmuseum in Bern, Switserland.

During this period Roos’ compositions were very free and natural, the animals, especially goats and sheep, have a wild, almost demonic look in their eyes. 

 

 

The Schildersbent was a society of Dutch, Flemish, a few German and a single French painter, all of them active in Rome. It was founded in or circa 1623. 

Its members were called the ‘Bentvueghels’ (“group of birds”). Although created as a support for compatriots it soon became well known for its rather convivial meetings, in so far that in 1720 this joyful society was forbidden by papal decree for too many feasts had ended in the greatest disorder.

 

Every member of the Schildersbent received a surname, a so-called “Bentname”. Roos was nicknamed Mercurius.

 

The most important members of the Bentveughels:

 

- 1620s – 1630s: first generation: Cornelis van Poelenburgh, Bartho-

lomeus Breenbergh and Pieter van Laer; 

- 1640s: second generation; Jan Both, Jan Asselijn, Nicolaes Berchem, Jan Baptist Weenix, Adam Pynacker and Karel Dujardin;

- third quarter 17th century: third generation: Johannes Glauber, Jan-Frans van Bloemen and Hendrick van Lint.

In the first generation there was no difference between the artistic production made in Rome or back home, for the second generation there was and the third generation settled permanently in Rome, they did not return to their home country.

 

 

- Johann Heinrich (Reipoltskirchen 1631 – 1685 Frankfurt-am-Main)

 

- Philipp Peter (St Goar 1657 – 1706 Rome)  “ROSA DA TIVOLI”

 

          - Jakob (Rome 1682 – after 1730 Napels)  “ROSA DA 

                NAPOLI”

 

          - Cajetan (Rome 1690 – 1770 Vienna)  “GAETANO DE 

                ROSA”    

 

                    - Joseph (Vienna 1726 – 1805 Vienna)

 

                    - August (? ? - ? ?)

 

- Johann Melchior (Heidelberg 1663 – 1731 Brunswick)

 

- Franz (? 1672 - ? ?)

 

- Peter (Frankfurt-am-Main 1675 – 1725 London)

 

- Theodor (Wesel 1638 – 1687 Frankfurt-am-Main)

 

 

Because it is such a funny, strong, modern looking painting.