Lot 2040 Dα

A gentle breeze seems to animate this evening landscape. Rays of light from the low lying sun illuminate the scene, causing the figures of the young farmer on the cart and the animals to appear as silhouettes. However, the focus of the painting is neither the farmer nor the landscape, but the animals: Cows, horses and goats. It is a classic "animal picture". Roelant Savery, Gillis Hondecoeter and later Paulus Potter and Cornelis Saftleven were among the pioneers of this genre of painting, which was to remain so important within Dutch painting well into the 19th century.
Cornelis was the son of the history painter Herman Saftleven the Elder (1580-1627), with whom he studied in Rotterdam together with his brothers Herman and Abraham. At the beginning of the 1630s, he is said to have resided in Antwerp and there had contact with Rubens. In his estate were no less than eight paintings by his hand. In around 1634, Cornelis moved to Utrecht, where his brother Herman also lived. He finally settled in Rotterdam in 1648. Cornelis Saftleven's oeuvre encompasses around 200 paintings, 71 of which are dated between 1625 and 1678. This work, dated 1645, was painted at the height of his artistic career.