Two Cows and a Bull Reclining on a Slope

Cattle nearly identical to the three seen here are included in a herd in the middle distance of A Pastoral Landscape, an idealized scene of about 1645, now part of the collection of the Barber Institute, Birmingham. The complete composition can also be seen in the artist's copy in the Liber Veritatis (British Museum, London; LV 93).
This sheet was no. 46 of the Animal Album, and Roethlisberger noted that it was one of only two drawings from the group used in a painting. It is on a thinner paper than other studies in the album. When the dealer Hans Calmann acquired the Animal Album at sale in 1957, it had purportedly been kept intact in the Odescalchi family in Rome since at least the eighteenth century. Calmann dismantled the album and sold the 64 sheets individually.