A shepherd playing a flute

When Paulus Potter (1625-54) died of tuberculosis before he was 30 years old, he had already profoundly influenced the way animals are depicted in European art. Potter created portraits of animals, making them his picture's focus, not just a backdrop for human action. The precocious son of a painter, his first dated work is from 1640. He entered Delft's Guild of Saint Luke in 1646, two years after this etching, and later moved to The Hague. He is said to have wandered the Dutch countryside, sketchbook in hand, equally sensitive to how farm animals behave at different times of day and to light's vicissitudes from morning to dusk. Few of his contemporaries were more attuned to nature's moods or to the timeless harmony of beast, landscape, and weather. Potter's strong feeling for composition is seen in the way he grouped forms and used silhouette. Besides his paintings, he produced some two dozen etchings of animal subjects. A few of these, and many more etchings by Marcus de Bye after Potter's designs, are in the Te Papa collection.

Early in his career, Potter was strongly influenced by the etchings of Gerrit Claesz. Bleker (1625–1665), which featured pastoral scenes of rustic shepherds and domestic animals. Potter favoured works of this nature himself, producing both prints and drawings. In this etching he examines the relationship between the shepherd and his sheep, showing the farmer calming his herd by playing a flute. The beasts, in return, remain near their caretaker, despite the vast countryside in which they can roam. The sheep sit contentedly in the shade while a farmer ploughs the land in the distance, allowing Potter to convey the intimate connection of man and animal to the land.

See:

Art Institute of Chicago, 'The Shepherd', https://www.artic.edu/artworks/22112/the-shepherd

J. Paul Getty Museum, 'Paulus Potter', http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/259/paulus-potter-dutch-1625-1654/

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   November 2018