A shepherd playing a flute

When Paulus Potter (1625-54) died of tuberculosis before he was 30 years old, he had already profoundly influenced the way animals are depicted in European art. Potter created portraits of animals, making them his picture's focus, not just a backdrop for human action. The precocious son of a painter, his first dated work is from 1640. He entered Delft's Guild of Saint Luke in 1646, two years after this etching, and later moved to The Hague. He is said to have wandered the Dutch countryside, sketchbook in hand, equally sensitive to how farm animals behave at different times of day and to light's vicissitudes from morning to dusk. Few of his contemporaries were more attuned to nature's moods or to the timeless harmony of beast, landscape, and weather. Potter's strong feeling for composition is seen in the way he grouped forms and used silhouette. Besides his paintings, he produced some two dozen etchings of animal subjects. A few of these, and many more etchings by Marcus de Bye after Potter's designs, are in the Te Papa collection.