# Two Cows and a Young Bull beside a Fence in a Meadow

- By: Paulus Potter (Dutch, 1625–1654)
- Date: 1647
- Medium: Oil on panel
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 49.5 × 37.2 cm (19 1/2 × 14 3/4 in.); Framed: 70.2 × 58.1 × 4.5 cm (27 5/8 × 22 7/8 × 1 3/4 in.)
- Culture: Netherlands
- Credit line: In loving memory of Harold T. Martin from Eloise W. Martin, wife, and Joyce Martin Brown, daughter; Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection; Lacy Armour Endowment; through prior gift of Frank H. and Louise B. Woods
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/146953)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/5de78980-17d7-8fb5-83de-7b2ae4e997f2/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Paulus Potter, a prolific painter and etcher during his short life, elevated images of cows, oxen, and other domestic animals to majestic emblems of nature. His lavish attention to the physical appearances of such beasts—the varied texture and coloring of their hair, their characteristic poses, their bulky contours—borders on portraiture and likely derived from drawings he made from life. With Potter, animal painting blossomed into an independent genre in the Dutch Republic.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0