by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 14, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
A herd assembled on paper
The biggest cow lowers its head towards the right edge, its long back running almost the width of the sheet. To the left, another animal faces outward, and a third turns away. Smaller cows and fragments appear above and below the central group. Pen lines describe the angular joints and heavy bodies, while grey wash helps set one shape against another. The sheet is more like a store of observations than a view of a particular field.
The British Museum[1] identifies this work as Cows, Study for a Painting, number 1895,0915.1046. It is a drawing in pen and brown ink with grey wash on paper, 34 × 52.6 centimetres. The reproduction matches its arrangement of large cattle, small studies and peripheral marks. These facts already change how the page should be read. The broad old route name Cows does not describe an oil landscape or a single finished animal portrait.
The most important catalogue point concerns maker. The British Museum currently credits the office of Peter Paul Rubens, rather than confidently giving every mark to Rubens's own hand. The drawing belongs to the visual work of his studio and to the circulation of designs around him. A title or caption that says simply “by Peter Paul Rubens” would erase the museum's distinction. It is more useful to ask what the sheet did within a workshop than to treat its uncertain autograph status as a defect.
At a Glance
- MakerOffice of Peter Paul Rubens [1]
- DateUncertain; museum fields differ [1]
- MediumPen and brown ink with grey wash on paper [1]
- Dimensions34 × 52.6 cm [1]
- CollectionBritish Museum, 1895,0915.1046 [1]
- Related workMunich Landscape with a Herd of Cattle, 322 [1][2]
Contents
- What are the different studies doing?
- Why does the British Museum say “office of Rubens”?
- When was the drawing made?
- Where do related cattle appear in Rubens's art?
- What does a workshop animal study tell us?
- How should we read the title today?
What are the different studies doing?
The largest cow offers a broad side view. Its spine forms a gentle arc, but the body is built from particular turns at shoulder, hip and knee. The head reaches down and outward. The animal on the left gives a contrasting view of the hindquarters; the central cow presents a more frontal face and chest. Placing several views on one sheet makes it possible to compare the same sort of body from different angles without a finished landscape arranging them into a single believable herd.
The small lower studies matter. One is seen more side-on, its legs lightly placed beneath the body; another appears from behind. Their reduced scale does not make them accidental scraps. They show how a draughtsman might test a silhouette, a head turn or the spacing of legs before using a motif elsewhere. The upper and outer marks keep the page active beyond the main trio. No horizon or architecture tells us where these animals stood when first observed.
Brown ink can fix a contour sharply, while grey wash can suggest volume without describing every hair. On the central cow, darker passages help separate neck, chest and foreleg; around the other bodies, light lines remain visible through revisions and overlaps. The image can support this close visual description. It cannot tell us whether every cow was drawn at one sitting, copied from an earlier model, or added on different days. Those would be claims about process that require stronger evidence than a small reproduction.
The title's “for a painting” indicates an artistic use, not a contract for a particular commission. A sheet of animal studies could supply a motif to a landscape, an episode from mythology, or a later workshop copy. Even when a painted cow resembles one on paper, the resemblance alone does not prove a direct, single-step transfer. The British Museum's attribution and curatorial discussion require the relationship to stay open.
Why does the British Museum say “office of Rubens”?
“Office” in the museum's maker line points to Rubens's working circle. Its curator compares the sheet with a stronger, near-identical drawing at Chatsworth, which has been attributed to Anthony van Dyck. The Museum doubts that the British Museum sheet is an autograph Rubens drawing made by copying his younger colleague. One possibility in its discussion is that the London sheet was made in the workshop from a lost Rubens original. That is explicitly a possibility: no such original survives for inspection in this argument.
The distinction matters because a design and the sheet carrying it need not have the same maker. Rubens could invent a useful cattle grouping, a pupil could copy or adapt it, and a later painting could reuse a related form. But that plausible sequence is not an established documentary chain for this paper. The safe public credit is the collection's current office of Peter Paul Rubens, with the Chatsworth comparison explained as part of the attribution reasoning.
The Chatsworth sheet is a separate drawing, not a second name for this one. A stronger line in one version can help a curator judge their relationship, but a reader looking at the London image cannot settle which hand drew each passage by eye alone. Van Dyck's name here belongs to a comparison and its scholarly attribution, not to an automatic replacement credit for British Museum 1895,0915.1046.
Older websites often place every work connected to a famous studio under the master's name. That convenience can obscure how seventeenth-century workshops operated. This page retains its inherited Rubens route because the sheet is part of that artistic network, while its heading, image caption and object facts state the more precise maker level. The subject remains worth studying even when the hand is qualified.
When was the drawing made?
The British Museum record itself does not yield a single secure year. Its structured production field gives 1620–35, while the descriptive image text has used about 1636–38. The curatorial comparison places the better Chatsworth drawing around 1618–20. These different dates refer to different kinds of assessment, and the Chatsworth date cannot simply be borrowed for the London sheet. The public caption therefore says date uncertain rather than choosing an unsupported precise year.
This matters when comparing the cattle with paintings. Rubens made landscapes at different points in his career. A match of animal pose can suggest that an idea was available in a studio, but it does not itself establish when this piece of paper received its ink. If the London drawing is a copy, its execution could be later than the invention it preserves. If the Museum's current maker line is right, a date for a painted work cannot be treated as an autograph drawing date.
The uncertainty need not make the sheet timeless. It belongs to the world of Rubens's Antwerp studio and to seventeenth-century interest in assembling animal and landscape motifs. What remains uncertain is narrower: the exact day, year and direct sequence of this particular drawing. A range should not be turned into “around 1637” merely because a legacy caption once favoured the later description.
Where do related cattle appear in Rubens's art?
The Alte Pinakothek in Munich[2] holds Rubens's Landscape with a Herd of Cattle, inventory 322, dated about 1618. It is a painting on oak, 81.1 × 106.7 centimetres, with a herd grazing in a wooded setting. The museum links Rubens's landscape practice to Dutch painting traditions and to the countryside around Antwerp. This is useful context for why cattle could matter to his art. It is not the British Museum drawing reproduced here.
The National Gallery in London[3] has The Watering Place, NG4815, a separate oil painting on wood dated about 1615–22. A milkmaid leads cattle away from a stream while people, horses, trees and morning light make a full landscape. The Gallery describes a herd in motion rather than a page of isolated animals. The contrast shows a possible destination for studies of bodily weight and movement, but the Gallery does not identify this British Museum sheet as its documented preparatory drawing.
The London painting also has a known relationship to another Rubens landscape, A Shepherd with his Flock in a Woody Landscape[4], NG2924. The National Gallery says a section of the shepherd picture was freely reused in The Watering Place. That is a documented example of Rubens reworking part of a landscape design. It illustrates how motifs could move between works while reminding us that the actual evidenced transfer is between those two paintings, not automatically from the cows sheet.
The Museum's curatorial discussion also notes cattle motifs related to other Rubens landscapes and to versions of Mercury and Argus. Such recurrence is a reason to keep the drawing within Rubens's working orbit, yet the same cow can be adapted, reversed or copied. A painting with a similar animal does not turn every mark on the London paper into the master's own. Related works help explain use and circulation; they cannot erase the qualification in the maker field.
What does a workshop animal study tell us?
It shows attention to the cow as a body that can carry a picture. The heavy torso, narrow legs and changing direction of the head all create problems for drawing. A studio artist who can turn those observations into a persuasive silhouette has material for a rural landscape. In the finished Munich and London paintings, cattle help animate the countryside and set the scale of human labour. On this sheet, the animals are close enough to inspect as forms before they take on a role in an environment.
The National Gallery's account of The Watering Place[3] emphasizes the different actions of animals and people: the milkmaid leads a herd, horses drink, and another figure tries to free an obstinate animal from mud. The British Museum sheet does not contain that narrative. Its openness is productive. A lowered head could become a grazing cow in one setting or an animal turning towards a stream in another. The study offers possibilities without fixing a single episode.
There is also a limit to what the sheet can tell us about live observation. Cattle were available in the landscape around Antwerp, and Rubens's circle studied nature, but the London paper may be a copy of another design. We should not describe its draughtsman as standing in a field with these exact animals unless a source supports that claim. What can be seen is careful variation of stance and mass, whether the immediate model was living cattle or an earlier drawing.
The paper's value survives that uncertainty. Studio copies can preserve designs that might otherwise be lost and can reveal which motifs were considered useful enough to repeat. The Museum's proposed lost Rubens original, if one existed, would make this sheet an important witness to an invention unavailable in its first form. But the proposal should remain conditional. The drawing itself is the surviving evidence, not a transparent window onto a missing original.
How should we read the title today?
The simple inherited label Cows is accurate about subject but incomplete about object and authorship. Cows, Study for a Painting identifies a sheet on paper rather than a finished landscape. “From Rubens's studio” reflects the British Museum's current maker line. Together these phrases tell a reader what they are looking at before they compare it with Munich, London or Chatsworth.
The most useful way to look is to move around the page. Begin with the long back and lowered head of the right-hand cow; then compare the compact animal at left, the frontal animal in the middle and the small tests below. Notice where ink is certain and where wash supplies shadow. The eye can see why such variations would be useful to painters. The catalogue then adds a second layer: the hand that drew this particular sheet is qualified, and its exact date is unresolved. Both layers belong to an honest account of the work.
Rubens artworks directory
Frequently Asked Questions
No. It is a pen-and-wash drawing on paper, British Museum 1895,0915.1046. The museum credits the office of Peter Paul Rubens.
The British Museum's current attribution does not assert that. Its curator doubts an autograph Rubens drawing and discusses a possible workshop copy after a lost original.
Its precise date is uncertain. The museum's structured range and descriptive dating differ; neither warrants a single-year caption.
No. Munich's Landscape with a Herd of Cattle, inventory 322, is an oil painting on oak. This is a separate British Museum drawing.
A near-identical, stronger drawing at Chatsworth is a comparison work, attributed to Van Dyck in the British Museum curator's discussion. It is not this London sheet.
It belongs to the British Museum, London. Its collection record[1] gives the current catalogue identity.
Discussion
Compare the different angles and scale of the cattle studies.
Share a close observation or a reliable source about BM 1895,0915.1046.
Reader Insights
What does the qualified studio attribution tell us?
How might a painter reuse a study of an animal?
What can be inferred from a related painting, and what remains open?
Join the Conversation
Add your reading below, distinguishing the drawing from the landscapes.
References
- British Museum, Cows, Study for a Painting , 1895,0915.1046. View source
- Alte Pinakothek, Rubens, Landscape with a Herd of Cattle , 322. View source
- National Gallery, London, Rubens, The Watering Place , NG4815. View source
- National Gallery, London, Rubens, A Shepherd with his Flock in a Woody Landscape , NG2924. View source
