Young Herdsmen with Cows  1663

Inventories of Castle Meerdervoort dating from 1680 and 1749 record Cuyp’s portrait of two sons of the wealthy Pompe van Meerdervoort family with their tutor and coachman. The painting hung over the mantle in the boys’ room, as the patron probably intended. In the distance Cuyp depicted not the environs of Dordrecht but the countryside near Elten on the Rhine. The castle m...