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The Dutch Golden Age artist Adriaen van de Velde (1636-72) first studied with his father Willem van de Velde the Elder, then trained with a landscapist in Haarlem. He produced his first known works, six etchings, in 1653 and had returned to Amsterdam by 1657. Van de Velde's varied body of paintings, drawings, and prints comprises primarily of small landscapes in sparkling light softened by the haze of the nearby sea, with people and animals playing an important part. He often added staffage (figures, animals and other accessories) to other artists' landscapes. Like his older but also short-lived contemporary, Paulus Potter, van de Velde preferred cattle scenes. Potter's tight, precise technique and hard, cool sunlight also influenced van de Velde's early pictures. His regular system of drawing before painting often included sketching cattle in the fields and figures from life in the studio; the increased prominence he gave to figures and animals required this more observational method. Responding to works by
Adriaen van de Velde made 24 etchings in the course of his short career. Te Papa currently has five of them in its collection, all of them presented by Bishop Ditlev Monrad to the Colonial Museum in 1869. Herdsman and bull is Plate 1 of a series of 10 etchings entitled Various animals, and was published by Justus Danckerts in 1659. It depicts the bull standing in profile to the right; the herdsman blows a horn with one arm, with his other arm resting on the bull's back. The bull appears imperturbable and obviously there is mutual respect between them. In the distance there are several cows grazing and - a rare event in Holland probably invented by the artist - a distant hill on the right.
See: J. Paul Getty Museum, 'Adriaen van de Velde', http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/545/adriaen-van-de-velde-dutch-1636-1672/
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art April 2019