Two Cows and a Young Bull beside a Fence in a Meadow

Paulus Potter · 1647

Medium

Oil on panel

Original size

49.5 × 37.2 cm (19 1/2 × 14 3/4 in.); Framed: 70.2 × 58.1 × 4.5 cm (27 5/8 × 22 7/8 × 1 3/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

Paulus Potter painted cattle with a quiet dignity that few artists before or since have matched, and this intimate panel from 1647 is a perfect example of his unhurried, observational eye. Potter completed this work at just twenty-two years old, already fully in command of his craft. Working on oak panel, he built up his animals with a precision that sits somewhere between portraiture and pastoral painting — each coat, each shadow, each blade of grass given the same patient attention. Where most Dutch painters placed livestock in the background as supporting detail, Potter placed them centre stage, rendering them with an almost documentary seriousness that made his work stand apart from the broader tradition of Dutch landscape painting. Potter died in 1654 at just twenty-eight, leaving behind a body of work that remained among the most coveted in the Dutch art market for generations after his death. A skilled oil painter has reproduced this work entirely by hand on panel, replicating Potter's warm, diffused light and the particular stillness of the animals as they stand in the meadow — a faithful interpretation of one of the Dutch Golden Age's most quietly remarkable works, made to hang and be lived with.