Landscape with Cows in a Brook

Art Historical Context

Created in 1698 by Swiss artist Felix Meyer, *Landscape with Cows in a Brook* captures a tranquil pastoral scene in delicate detail. The small gouache drawing, measuring just over four by six inches, depicts cattle resting beside a gentle stream amid a softly rendered countryside. Such intimate views of nature reflect the growing appreciation for landscape as an independent subject during the late seventeenth century, when artists began celebrating the quiet beauty of rural life. Meyer executed the work in gouache heightened with gum arabic, a medium prized for its luminous, velvety surfaces and fine detail. The addition of gum arabic increases the paint’s transparency and richness, allowing subtle gradations of light and color that bring freshness to the foliage and water. Now housed in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Drawings and Prints, this modest sheet exemplifies the period’s taste for portable, highly finished nature studies that could be enjoyed in the intimacy of a collector’s cabinet.