The Ypres born François Roffiaen (1820-1898) was a landscape painter who specialised in Alpine landscapes and its surroundings. En Plein Air he drew his studies in oil, pencil, brush and watercolour. At the age of three he went to live with his uncle, Joseph-Louis-Augustin, who was a bookseller in Namur where François went to Grammar School and the Academy of Painting (1835-1839) followed by the Academy of Brussels under François Bossuet (1789-1889). François completed his studies at the studio of Pierre-Louis Kühnen (1812-1877) in Brussels. Inspired by Alexandre Calame (1810-1864) with whom he spent six months in Geneva in 1864, he fell in love with the Alpine landscape. His international commissions brought him the title Chevalier de l'Ordre de Léopold in 1869.
Introduced in his early childhood to the domain of Natural Sciences by Jules Colbeau (1823-1881), François also acclaimed fame for his achievements in Malacology (Molluscs) as one of the founding members of the Malacological Society of Belgium.
Already during his lifetime paintings by Roffiaen were very much sought after and works by the artist are represented in the collections of musea in Antwerp, Brussels, Ypers, Namur and prominent private-collectors in Buffalo, Chicago, New York, The Hague, London and Cambridge as well as the collections of Queen Victoria (a Birthday present given by her husband Prince Albert) and the Shah of Persia.[1]
This large study of shepherds with cattle was a rich rource of inspiration to Roffiaen providing staffage for his paintings made along the banks of the river Meuse (Ardennes), Chamonix, l'Ourthe, Lake Chamien Bavaria, Genck, Neuhaus and the Swiss landscape the artist visited frequently. The domesticated bear (wearing a collar and muzzle) must have been spotted by the artist somewhere at a zoo.
[1] Jan Dewilde, François Roffiaen 182-1898, Schetsen uit de carrière van een landschapsschilder.
Dienst Stedelijke Musea, Iper, 1998.
