River with Cattle

Cattle stand in a river in this tranquil pastoral scene from around 1776 at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. De Loutherbourg's renderings of cattle in water demonstrate his ability to capture reflections and the interaction of animal forms with liquid surfaces—technical challenges that few landscape painters handled as convincingly. Derby, home of Joseph Wright and a center of Midlands industry and intellectual life, offered a receptive audience for sophisticated landscape painting.

The water surface serves double duty as both compositional element and technical showcase, with reflections of cattle, sky, and foliage creating a secondary image beneath the main subject. De Loutherbourg handles the distorted reflections with conviction, using broken brushwork to suggest the water's gentle movement. The warm, summer light unifies the scene in golden tones.