Paulus Potter, 'Landscape with Cattle and a Woman by a Stream', 1647

In the seventeenth century, Dutch farmers took great pride in their cattle. Paulus Potter was quick to realise the potential of depicting cows as almost iconic figures in an idyllic, if naturalistic, landscape. Painted when he was only 22 years old, this picture is Potter at the beginning of his career already revealing great talent.

A fine cow stands like a monument in the evening sun. The shadow of her curved horns is reflected on the warm golden-brown hide of her neck. Her tail flicks away flies from her rump. Her udder is almost full and her belly curves, replete with the rich grass of the flat Dutch plain. Potter pays close attention to the head of the animal, as if painting a portrait. He shows her delicate facial hairs growing in different directions, her eyes half closed and her mouth slightly open as she chews the cud contentedly.

Behind her, a second cow bends to drink from the slow-running stream. A third is curled rather awkwardly on the ground, her head turning, possibly towards the sound of the activity close by. Caught in soft light, a woman squats by the stream. She is scouring a wooden bucket, perhaps preparing for milking. Potter has given her a strong build but, unlike the animals, she is far from serene. On the muddy edge of the water her feet are bare. Her sleeves are rolled up, and her white shift is showing under the red skirt spread across her knees. Her fair curls escape the little round cap on her head. Another bucket awaits her attention nearby. Women farm workers are rarely seen in Potter’s images, and almost never attacking their work with such energy as this one.

The scene is framed by the reflections in the stream in the foreground, the reeds and lily pads on the left, and the other animals that dot the open land to the far distance. In the shadows beneath the great tree on the right, a man sits quietly with his dog, almost hidden in the dappled light. On the left, a church thrusts its tall tower up through the trees of a small wood. Even further away, tiny buildings and towers sketched in white with a fine brush are just visible on the horizon. This is likely to be the town of Delft. Potter had been a member of the painters’ guild there since 1646, before he moved to The Hague three years later.

This picture celebrates the flat countryside around Delft or The Hague. In later paintings, such as A Landscape with Cows, Sheep and Horses by a Barn, Potter portrayed hillsides under golden skies similar to those that he saw in images brought back from Rome by so-called Italianate artists such as Nicolaes Berchem and his Peasants with Cattle fording a Stream. The combination of monumental animals and rolling hills is seen in Potter’s Cattle and Sheep in a Stormy Landscape. Lowering clouds and wind-blown trees show the influence of other artists visiting Rome, who adopted the technique of chiaroscuro. This added dramatic dignity to Dutch landscape painting. But depicting animals as heroic against tempestuous nature was Potter’s special invention, an idea perhaps deriving from the statuesque creature in this picture.