Landscape with Farmstead and Cattle, 1783

Blatt: 245 x 357 mm

Physical Description: Brush and grey and greyish brown gum (arabic?), over black chalk

Inventory Number: 3745

Object Number: 3745 Z

Status: Request for presentation in the study room of the Prints and Drawings Department

Texts

About the Work

When a new style of interior decoration came into vogue between 1770 and 1780, the wallpaper painter Jacob Cats responded by specializing in landscape drawings for sale on the market. The two companion pieces “Landscape with Farmstead and Cattle” and “Landscape with Inn and Drinking Travellers” (Inv.-Nr. 3746) are executed solely in shades of grey. Nevertheless, thanks to the artist’s refined drawing technique and sensitive handling of the light, they convey a sense of warmth that accounts for the coherence of the compositions. Cats thus achieved idyllic depictions of Netherlandish rural life with allusions to the landscape art of the seventeenth century.