Hollands Hollende Koe (Holland’s Running Cow)
Gaspar Bouttats
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Broadside consisting of a large illustration printed from an etching plate, and a text in letterpress in three columns below, which comments on the scene depicted above. The subject of the print is the return of Hans Willem Bentick, Earl of Portland to the Netherlands. Bentinck was the friend and ally of stadtholder Willem and hoped to gain support for his patron in his new role as king of England. The Dutch initially opposed this political development and resented the fact that their stadtholder had taken on a monarchical position. They were also afraid that the English and Germans would try to 'milk' the Dutch Republic for all it was worth. These concerns are translated into a chaotic scene showing Bentinck charging in on the back of a running, blindfolded cow, which is being milked by the English and the Germans. The text below the image contains a full description of all the details depicted in the print. Only several copies of this broadside are known to have survived. It is a curious object of print history which simultaneously offers a commentary of events in 17th-century Holland, but also on the contemporary taste for political prints by Romeyn de Hooghe. This print is often attributed to him, claiming that the author’s name ‘Bousche’ is a pseudonym for the artist, but the style of the etching suggests that it is by a follower rather than the master himself.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.