Aelbert Cuyp, The Small Dort

This painting is very similar to but roughly half the size of another landscape by Aelbert Cuyp: A Distant View of Dordrecht, with a Milkmaid and Four Cows, and Other Figures. We don't know which was painted first, but the mood, the lighting and the focus on the cows with the city of Dordrecht in the background are immediately recognisable. Presumably one of Cuyp’s clients saw and liked one of the paintings, and asked him for a bigger or smaller version.

Most of Cuyp’s customers were wealthy merchants in his hometown of Dordrecht, and several of these had land and property in the countryside beyond; almost certainly they would have had an interest in dairy farming. Cows were a national success story. The seventeenth century had seen improvements in breeding stock, better feeding practice and increasing reclamation of flooded land – low-lying pasture was much better for cattle than sheep. Cheese and butter were not only national staples, they were now key exports. In short, cattle represented wealth, peaceful prosperity and plenty.

We sense that happy state in this painting. The cows seem to have a presence in the landscape which is as permanent and solid as the church and windmills beyond. The mood is more soporific than in the larger version, however. The sky seems slightly less luminous, the sun is lower and more of the painting is in shadow. Three of the cows seem to be on the verge of sleep, while the herdsman and the dog have already dropped off. The day’s labour, it seems, is over. But a similar sense of ease and contentment prevails. And Cuyp has used the same subtle sequence of pictorial planes to knit together the composition, from the dark foreground of weeds and brambles to the light-dappled cows, the shadowy cottages and windmills, then Dordrecht itself, bathed in the evening light.

He has also opened out the landscape slightly more towards the east, where the city suburbs encroach even more closely. The rickety patched-up fence – Cuyp has signed his name on the top rail – gives a slight sense of benign neglect. There is more emphasis on the cows in this version – no distracting milkmaids or children here. And, unlike the larger picture where the cattle are kept almost entirely below the horizon, here the central standing animal hogs a good part of the skyline, obliterating most of the church nave in the distance. Cuyp has also added an extra cow to the composition – a black and white one. Perhaps this was just for effect and variation, or perhaps his client was experimenting with a new breed.