Artwork
Landscape with Cattle

Landscape with Cattle is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Johann Heinrich Roos. It is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst.
About this work
Technique & Style
Landscape with Cattle is executed in oil paint on canvas, a standard support for Johann Heinrich Roos's landscape compositions.
Landscape with Cattle is executed in oil paint on canvas, a standard support for Johann Heinrich Roos's landscape compositions. The work is classified as a painting and belongs to the landscape genre, with cattle as its central subject.
The canvas measures 460.0 in height by 590.0 in width, giving it a markedly horizontal format suited to a panoramic pastoral scene. Painted in 1676, the work reflects Roos's established approach to the landscape genre, in which animal figures, here cattle, are integrated into a broader natural setting rather than treated as isolated portrait subjects.
History & Provenance
The painting Landscape with Cattle was created by Johann Heinrich Roos in 1676. Executed in oil paint, the work depicts a pastoral scene featuring cattle within a landscape setting. The Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen currently holds the piece in its collection, where it is cataloged under the inventory number KMSsp762.
The artwork is recorded as having a height of 460 cm and a width of 590 cm, though the specific commission details or the chain of ownership prior to its arrival at the museum are not detailed in the provided records.
The painting is held by Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) in Copenhagen, inventoried as KMSsp762. It was accessioned into the museum’s holdings as part of its national collection.
The work has been exhibited at SMK; its permanent display context includes rotation within the museum’s landscape galleries, though specific temporary loan exhibitions are not documented in the provided sources.
Legacy
Landscape with Cattle (1676) by Johann Heinrich Roos exerted influence through its realistic depiction of pastoral subjects, shaping later animal painting traditions. The work's composition and treatment of livestock informed subsequent generations of European artists working in the animal genre, particularly within Dutch and German schools. Its presence in the Statens Museum for Kunst collection has contributed to ongoing scholarly attention to 17th-century landscape painting.
The painting's technical execution in oil on canvas demonstrated compositional approaches that were studied by later artists exploring similar subjects.
Overview
Landscape with Cattle, an oil painting created by Johann Heinrich Roos in 1688, presents a peaceful natural scene featuring grazing cattle in the foreground, set against a backdrop of trees and a distant, unidentified structure.
Subject & Meaning
The painting's primary subject is the serene interaction between grazing cattle and their natural surroundings, evoking a sense of tranquility. The distant structure, possibly a ruin or building, adds depth without distracting from the pastoral focus.
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