A man stands and a woman sits near a herd of seven cows under a light-drenched sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The herd gathers on a grassy rise just beyond some large boulders and twiggy branches. The cows are caramel or copper brown and ivory white. They stand and lie, legs tucked demurely beneath their hulking bodies, facing different directions, their short horns curling like parentheses against the sky. The man stands on our side of the herd with his back to us to the left of center. He holds a tall shepherd’s staff in one hand as he hunches slightly and points with the…
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Herdsmen Tending Cattle

Aelbert Cuyp (Dutch, 1620 - 1691)

1655/1660

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 66 x 87.6 cm (26 x 34 1/2 in.) ; framed: 88.9 x 109.9 x 3.8 cm (35 x 43 1/4 x 1 1/2 in.)
Culture
Dutch
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CNE-B
Credit line
Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art

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