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Lot Essay
Paulus Potter’s images of cattle elevate ordinary subject matter beyond literal transcription of the Dutch countryside into quietly majestic paintings with profound national significance. In seventeenth-century Holland, cows became emblems not only of the strength of the Dutch economy, through their association with cattle farming and the dairy industry, but also of the well-being of the Dutch nation itself, serving as patriotic symbols of prosperity, fertility and plenty against the backdrop of the Republic’s struggle for independence from Spanish Rule. Potter combined this native subject matter with a warm, suffused light, influenced by Dutch artists who had travelled to Italy. Especially following the example of Pieter van Laer, Potter immersed his depictions of his local countryside with brilliant light effects, here visible in the strong light cast over the cattle, picking up the highlights of their hair, and the warm glow which pervades the landscape.
At the time of the 1996 sale, the date of the present work was illegible and assumed to be 1645. The picture has since been cleaned and is clearly dated 1649. The work therefore precedes a comparable painting with the same arrangement of cows dated 1652 (Madrid, Museo del Prado, inv. no. P002131). A drawing of a standing cow in the Amsterdam Historical Museum traditionally attributed to Paulus’s father, Pieter Symonsz Potter, but thought to be by Paulus himself, has previously been published as a study for the cow on the left of the Prado painting and clearly also informed this picture (B. Broos, in Paulus Potter: Paintings, drawings and etchings, exhibition catalogue, Zwolle, 1994, p. 178, no. 42). On this basis, the date of the drawing has been assumed to predate 1652, but the emergence of the present work suggests that it must in fact predate 1649.
The 1640s was a seminal decade for Potter, during which the artist created some of his finest paintings. After 1643, he moved away from history subjects and increasingly turned his attention to the Dutch countryside, employing greater naturalism in his works and more focused subject matter. The lower vantage point, attention to the cattle, and continuous landscape stretching towards the distant horizon in this work are all typical of a group of paintings made by Potter in the late 1640s, including Two Cows and a Bull of 1647 (Chicago, Art Institute), Three Cows of 1648 (Montpellier, Musée Fabre) and Bull with two Cows in a Meadow of 1649 (Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace).
A note on the provenance
An engraving in the 1815 catalogue of Baron Nicolas Massias’s collection allows us to reunite the work with its earlier provenance for the first time in recent history. Massias was a French diplomat, colonel, philosopher and author who amassed an impressive collection of Old Master Paintings, including Correggio’s Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist (Art Institute of Chicago), Profile Portrait of a Young Lady, now given to Piero del Pollaiuolo (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie), and works attributed to Andrea del Sarto, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Peter Paul Rubens, and Anthony van Dyck (for further information on Massias's collection see V. Chenal and F. Hueber, eds., 'Le cabinet du Baron Nicolas Massias', in Histoire des collections à Genève du XVIe au XIXe siècle, Geneva, 2011, n.p.). Potter received high praise in Charles-Paul Landon’s catalogue of Massias's collection for his naturalism, refinement and colouring: ‘quel naturel dans tout ce qu’il touche! quelle finesse, quelle transparence de coloris et quelle vigueur de ton et d’effet!’ ('What naturalness in everything he touches! What finesse, what transparency of color, and what vigor of tone and effect!'; op. cit., p. 89). The painting was subsequently recorded in the 1869 estate sale of banker Baron François-Benjamin-Marie Delessert, who possessed one of the best-known collections of cabinet pictures in Paris.
At the time of the 1996 sale, the date of the present work was illegible and assumed to be 1645. The picture has since been cleaned and is clearly dated 1649. The work therefore precedes a comparable painting with the same arrangement of cows dated 1652 (Madrid, Museo del Prado, inv. no. P002131). A drawing of a standing cow in the Amsterdam Historical Museum traditionally attributed to Paulus’s father, Pieter Symonsz Potter, but thought to be by Paulus himself, has previously been published as a study for the cow on the left of the Prado painting and clearly also informed this picture (B. Broos, in Paulus Potter: Paintings, drawings and etchings, exhibition catalogue, Zwolle, 1994, p. 178, no. 42). On this basis, the date of the drawing has been assumed to predate 1652, but the emergence of the present work suggests that it must in fact predate 1649.
The 1640s was a seminal decade for Potter, during which the artist created some of his finest paintings. After 1643, he moved away from history subjects and increasingly turned his attention to the Dutch countryside, employing greater naturalism in his works and more focused subject matter. The lower vantage point, attention to the cattle, and continuous landscape stretching towards the distant horizon in this work are all typical of a group of paintings made by Potter in the late 1640s, including Two Cows and a Bull of 1647 (Chicago, Art Institute), Three Cows of 1648 (Montpellier, Musée Fabre) and Bull with two Cows in a Meadow of 1649 (Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace).
A note on the provenance
An engraving in the 1815 catalogue of Baron Nicolas Massias’s collection allows us to reunite the work with its earlier provenance for the first time in recent history. Massias was a French diplomat, colonel, philosopher and author who amassed an impressive collection of Old Master Paintings, including Correggio’s Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist (Art Institute of Chicago), Profile Portrait of a Young Lady, now given to Piero del Pollaiuolo (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie), and works attributed to Andrea del Sarto, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Peter Paul Rubens, and Anthony van Dyck (for further information on Massias's collection see V. Chenal and F. Hueber, eds., 'Le cabinet du Baron Nicolas Massias', in Histoire des collections à Genève du XVIe au XIXe siècle, Geneva, 2011, n.p.). Potter received high praise in Charles-Paul Landon’s catalogue of Massias's collection for his naturalism, refinement and colouring: ‘quel naturel dans tout ce qu’il touche! quelle finesse, quelle transparence de coloris et quelle vigueur de ton et d’effet!’ ('What naturalness in everything he touches! What finesse, what transparency of color, and what vigor of tone and effect!'; op. cit., p. 89). The painting was subsequently recorded in the 1869 estate sale of banker Baron François-Benjamin-Marie Delessert, who possessed one of the best-known collections of cabinet pictures in Paris.