Grooms watering their horses

Grooms Watering Their Horses from 1650 combines Aelbert Cuyp's equestrian and river landscape specialties. The grooming and watering of horses was a subject that allowed the artist to display his skill in animal painting while creating the riverside settings with reflective water surfaces he excelled at. 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 horses at the water's edge create reflections that demonstrate Cuyp's mastery of rendering light on liquid surfaces, with the warm atmospheric light characteristic of his mature work.