Cattle in the pasture

Cattle in the Pasture from around 1656 is another of Aelbert Cuyp's pastoral cattle paintings, a subject he returned to repeatedly throughout his career. The Dutch tradition of cattle painting served both aesthetic and economic functions, celebrating the agricultural wealth that underpinned the Republic's prosperity. Characteristic of the artist's mature approach, the work displays warm amber-golden tonality derived from Jan Both's Italianate landscapes, serene cattle and horse subjects bathed in afternoon light, the Rhine at Dordrecht seen through a Mediterranean filter.

The grazing cattle are depicted with the naturalistic observation and warm tonal unity that distinguish Cuyp's animal painting from that of his contemporaries.