Landscape with a Cow Drinking

Landscape with a Cow Drinking is a seminal print by Rembrandt van Rijn Dutch, 1606-1669, executed during the decade between 1645 and 1655. This piece exemplifies the artist’s mastery of graphic media, specifically combining the clean, incisive lines of etching with the richer, burred textures achieved through drypoint on ivory laid paper. Created during the height of the Dutch Golden Age, this depiction of the Netherlands countryside belongs to a series of experimental landscape prints produced by Rembrandt, marking a notable shift in his subject matter toward naturalistic observation.

Unlike the highly detailed religious or portraiture subjects that dominate much of the artist’s oeuvre, this work focuses entirely on the rural environment. The intimate composition captures a serene moment as a cow lowers its head to drink, likely near a quiet Dutch waterway, foregrounded against a distant, open horizon. Rembrandt expertly utilized the unique capabilities of the combined printing processes, allowing him to achieve complex tonal variations that suggest atmosphere, shifting light, and distance through subtle manipulation of line density.

The resulting texture grants the scene an immediacy and profound spatial depth characteristic of his later style. This exquisite example of 17th-century printmaking demonstrates Rembrandt’s profound influence on subsequent landscape depiction in the Netherlands and throughout Europe. The print, treasured for its technical sophistication and historical importance, is classified as a print and forms a key component of the esteemed collection at the Art Institute of Chicago.