Two Bulls Fighting
n.d.
Medium
Etching on ivory paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 10.5 × 14.1 cm (4 3/16 × 5 9/16 in.)
Classification
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
48232
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Paulus Potter enjoyed great popularity as an animal painter and etcher. Other contemporary artists, like Aelbert Cuyp, also specialized in animals, and few Baroque Dutch landscapes were devoid of livestock. Yet Potter demonstrated his particularly close observation of the beasts—hooves, shaggy fur, limpid eyes, and all. Like his most famous painting, a lifesize portrait of a prize bull, this etching celebrates the fighting bulls’ physicality. Potter’s career was brilliant, but brief, for he died...
About the Artist
Paulus Potter · 1625–1654
Paulus Potter (1625–1654) was a Dutch Golden Age painter whose short life — he died at just twenty-eight years of age — belied an artistic achievement of remarkable originality and influence. Born in Enkhuizen in 1625, Potter trained under his father, the painter Pieter Potter, and later in Amsterdam and Delft, where he absorbed the technical standards of the flourishing Dutch painting tradition. ...