POTTER, Paulus
(b. 1625, Enkhuizen, d. 1654, Amsterdam)

Cows in a Meadow by a Farm

1653
Oil on canvas, 58 x 67 cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Scenes of herdsmen with cattle had been popular in Dutch painting since the 1620s, when they were painted mainly by the first generation of the so-called Italianates (e.g. Cornelis van Poelenburgh and Batholomeus Breenbergh). They placed their figures and animals in hilly, idealised landscapes, sometimes accompanied by classical nymphs and gods. Potter transported his pastoral from that ideal vision of Arcadia to 17th-century Dutch countryside, as illustrated by Cows in a Meadow by a Farm.