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Like the landscape and the still-life, animal painting became a genre of its own in the seventeenth-century Netherlands, its wealth of cattle being one of the prides of the country. Paulus Potter was the first to specialise in the subject, raising cows, sheep and pigs from the status of incidental embellishments to the rank of principal motif. His works were highly regarded in his own lifetime, and were highly collectable.
Potter has captured the appearance of the cattle in anatomically minute detail, the fine brushstrokes giving them an almost tangible materiality. Generally small in format, his works are distinguished by a monumentality of effect generated by the static calm of the motifs.
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