Theodor Philipsen (1840­–1920)
Driving Home the Cows along the Maglemer Fields, 1905
Oil on canvas

Theodor Philipsen found this scene of a farmer driving home his cows near Maribo on the island of Lolland, which he visited in 1903. However, the painting was done in his studio in Kastrup in 1905, based on the sketch Cows under Poplar Trees. Lolland from 1903.¹

Throughout his life, Philipsen found inspiration for the iconography and composition of his pictures in Dutch and French art, for example in the works of Paulus Potter (1625–1654), Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) and Jean-François Millet (1814–1875). The latter’s animal pictures with cattle under sheltering trees may have served as inspiration for Driving Home the Cows along the Maglemer Fields, ​​in which the animal motif is supplemented by a poignantly atmospheric rendition of nature. A striking feature is the large, majestic trees lining the field, which have clearly been exposed to strong winds for many years. The large treetops and the green splendour of the foliage catch the light filtering through the clouds spreading out across the blue sky. Light also peeps through the trees, which casting shadows onto the meadow where the cows perambulate day after day.

With Driving Home the Cows along the Maglemer Fields, ​​Philipsen not only sought to convey an impression of the Danish countryside, but also his own experience of it – and he did so on a large scale. Overall, the artist created relatively few large-format paintings. Those that exist were done after 1900, usually intended for sale to museum collections.²