Paulus Potter: Four Cows in the Meadow

Year: 1651

Collection Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Oil on panel 25 × 30 cm.

 

Pillar 2 Innovation and Technology

Here we see what we call now a typical Dutch landscpape with cows, painted by Paulus Potter. But in his time this landscape was completely new. The Dutch were creating new land by debilitating marslands. Cows were held on the grasslands and this was the beginning of Dutch farming. It 's an example of another caracteristic of Dutch foodculture: innovation and technology. In other words: what nature doesn't offer, the Dutch make it themselves. Or they improve it. They created new breeds of cows producing more milk. In the 19th century Dutch cows were imported by American farmers on a large scale. Nowadays The Netherlands are worldleader in the field of cattle technology. You can order bull's sperma for getting cows that produce more milk with higher or lower fat and proteine values, or producing more meat in stead of milk.