Landscape with a Cow Drinking

Landscape with a Cow Drinking is a celebrated print created by Rembrandt van Rijn in 1650. Executed on paper, this work exemplifies Rijn's mastery of the graphic arts, forming part of the vast collection of finely detailed etchings and drypoints he produced throughout the Dutch Golden Age. While known universally for his oil paintings, Rijn stands as perhaps the era's greatest innovator in the creation of prints, utilizing varying techniques to achieve atmospheric depth and nuance.

This piece belongs to the genre of rustic landscape, a favored subject that emphasized the naturalistic and agricultural elements central to 17th-century Dutch life. The composition captures an intimate moment of the countryside, focusing on the simple, everyday act suggested by the title: livestock drinking from a pool or stream. Rijn utilized subtle variations in line weight to create textures and suggest deep space, achieving a balance between the foreground detail and the hazy, distant atmosphere. Unlike his more dramatic biblical and historical prints, this piece offers a quiet realism, characteristic of the understated landscapes Rijn pursued in the late 1640s and early 1650s.

This important example of Dutch printmaking is housed in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, providing a crucial document of the artist's prolific output in the medium. Due to the artwork’s age and historical importance, high-quality images and reproductions of this foundational work are often found available within the public domain for educational study and appreciation.