 The female painter representing the lone shepherdess in the Shugborough relief sculpture was Judith Leyster (1609 – 1660), a child prodigy.
She was a seventeenth century Dutch artist whose style reflected the Utrecht School, or "Caravaggists," which utilized the dramatic lighting effects inherited from Caravaggio. Note that Guercino was also known to have made use of the same style in painting.
While the details of her training are uncertain, in her teens she was well enough known to be mentioned in a book by poet Samuel Ampzing titled “Description and Praise of the City Haarlem in Poetry”, originally written in 1621.
This means that her exceptional talent as a painter was already being recognized when she was only twelve years old!
In Guercino’s version of “The Shepherds of Arcadia” which was finished in 1618, there were only two shepherds portrayed. These shepherds were the painters Nicolas Poussin and Guercino himself, who were 24 and 27 years old respectively that year. David Teniers II and Judith Leyster were only 8 and 9 years old respectively that year, and were still too young.
The first time all four painters were portrayed together in a painting was in Nicolas Poussin’s first version of “The Shepherds of Arcadia” which was finished in 1627. Poussin, Guercino, Teniers, and Leyster were 33, 36, 17 and 18 years old respectively that year. If you take a closer look at Poussin’s two versions of “The Shepherds of Arcadia”, you will see that clearly, two of the male shepherds were adults, while the third male shepherd and the shepherdess were still youths. Also, notice that the young male shepherd and the shepherdess were having intimate contact with each other, suggesting that the two may have had an affair.
David Teniers was Flemish, or a Belgian Dutch, while Judith Leyster was Dutch. David Teniers was both the dean and founder of the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp. Leyster became the first woman to join the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke in 1633.
In 1892, Berenger Sauniere traveled to the Louve in Paris and went to view three paintings in particular, these were: “The Shepherds of Arcadia” by Poussin, Teniers’ “The Temptation of St. Anthony”, and an anonymous portrait of the investiture of Pope Celestine V titled "Allegory of the Coronation of Celestine V”.
I believe this work was done by Judith Leyster when she was still a child prodigy, and therefore, a yet unknown artist.
Another great work which I believe was anonymously painted by her was “A Description of the Fall of Atlantis” which was credited to a mysterious painter named “Monsu Desiderio”.
 François de Nomé (1593-died after 1620) was a French painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Naples. Born in Metz in the Lorraine region, he had moved to Rome by 1602. He often painted under the pseudonym of Monsù Desiderio, which encompassed at least three artists, Nome and his compatriot Didier Barra (1590-1644), and an unknown third artist.
I believe the child prodigy, Judith Leyster, was the unknown third artist who may have trained under François de Nomé while he was still in Rome.
Remember that although Leyster’s training was uncertain, her style was known to reflect the Utrecht School, or "The Caravaggists," which utilized the dramatic lighting effects inherited from Caravaggio (1571-1610), a famous Italian artist active in Rome. The Utrecht Caravaggisti painters Dirck van Baburen, Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick Terbrugghen, were known to have been in Rome in the decade 1610–1620. Could it be that these artists took the child prodigy with them to Rome during these years?
To summarize, the four painters Teniers, Poussin, Guercino, and Leyster are the three shepherds and shepherdess portrayed in the Shugborough relief sculpture. They were also represented by the four rotary dials of the two safe boxes, purposely positioned to form St. Anthony’s cross.
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