The black and white cow in our picture is a fine creature, and nothing could be more harmonious in colour than the brown cow and the brown jacket of the herdsman.
There were some painters in Holland in the seventeenth century who made animals their chief study.

Theretofore it had been rare to introduce them into pictures, except as symbols, like the lion of St.
Jerome, or where the story implied them; or in allegorical pictures, such as the 'Golden Age.' But at this later time animals had their share in the increased interest that was taken in the things of daily life, and they were painted for their handsome sakes, as Landseer painted them in England fifty years ago.
Thus the seventeenth century in Holland shows an enlargement in the scope of subjects for painting.

Devotional pictures were becoming rare, but illustrations, sacred and secular, portraits, groups, interiors, and landscapes, were produced in great numbers.

Dutch painters outnumbered those of Flanders, but among the latter were at least two of the highest eminence, Rubens and Van Dyck, and to these we will next direct our attention..