Landscape with cattle

Aelbert Cuyp is one of the leading landscape artists of the so-called Golden Age of Dutch painting. Cuyp’s style changed in subtle ways during his lifetime, and this work is from a period when, concentrating on natural atmospheric conditions, he painted idyllic scenes bathed in the diffuse golden light of dawn or dusk. In their Arcadian settings, the animals in his landscapes always appear healthy and robust, attesting to the buoyant economy and sense of prosperity that was prevalent in the Netherlands in the early seventeenth century. The dairy industry was itself a source of great pride, and depictions of cattle were a special genre in Dutch painting.

As the well-known landmarks in Cuyp’s landscapes make his settings so clearly identifiable, perhaps these paintings had particular relevance as ‘portraits of property’, and thus functioned as status symbols for the artist’s clientele. In this work, the town depicted in the background is Leiden. However, a major building, the Marekerk, is not visible. Our knowledge of when this church was constructed (1639–49) helps us date the painting: clearly, it must have been executed no later than 1649. Throughout his career, Cuyp almost always ensured that the area above the horizon line occupied two-thirds of the composition, making the sky a dominant force in his work.

Text by Laurie Benson from Painting and sculpture before 1800 in the international collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, p. 78.