Wooded Landscape with Horsemen and Cattle

In front of a panoramic landscape, at an open, watery spot, a small company of huntsmen stand among the trees. One of them has dismounted. A cowherd is driving his cattle along a woodland path on the right, and ducks and swans are swimming on the water. The composition is brimming with motifs that also appear on paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568 - 1625), such as the swans, the tree passage and the urinating man.

This fine landscape was therefore attributed for a long time to the popular ‘Velvet Brueghel'. Nowadays, however, it is attributed to Abraham Govaerts. Copying motifs was not seen as a negative trait. It was even encouraged by the likes of the important art theoretician Karel van Mander (1548-1606). In his didactic poem from 1604, ‘Den grondt der edel vry schilderconst’, he gives the following advice: “Steal arms/legs/torsos/hands/feet. It is not forbidden here”. In an inventive way, Govaerts was doing exactly what Van Mander urged painters to do, and was therefore by no means an exception.