Small Landscapes series
Joannes van Doetecum, Lucas van Doetecum, after the Master of the Small Landscapes, 1559 — 1561
One of the primary uses of printmaking in the sixteenth century was the visual documentation of the world. This was usually done in a spectacular manner – true to the spirit of the Renaissance – by depicting sweeping panoramic or exotic landscapes, sometimes combined with biblical or mythological subjects. Standing in great contrast to such works is the series of 44 Small Landscapes prints, engraved by Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes and published by the Antwerp printer Hieronymus Cock in 1559–1561.
One of these prints, Farm with Cattle and Milkmaid, belongs to that series and is particularly striking for its highly realistic and lifelike representation of everyday country life in the surroundings of Antwerp. The composition, with the barn in the background, the bowed willows and the cows with the milkmaid in the foreground, is characterized by simplicity and unpretentiousness. This print series was popular and it was often reissued. The theme is regarded as one of the sources of inspiration for Dutch landscape painting.
— Marijke Hellemans, Curator of the Print Room, Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp
Object details
Small Landscapes 1559-1561
Series of 44 prints, here represented by Farm
Etching | 134 x 193 mm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1939
(Also in the collections of the Rijksmuseum, British Museum and other museums)
Joannes van Doetecum
Deventer ca. 1530 – 1605 Haarlem
Lucas van Doetecum
? – before 1589 ?
after the Master of the Small Landscapes
Gallery
