Boer met paardenkar op een landweg 1666

Cornelis Saftleven made this drawing of a farmer with a horse-drawn cart on a country road with graphite on paper. In seventeenth-century Netherlands, there was a growing market for genre scenes, artworks that depicted ordinary people doing everyday things. Saftleven was one of many artists who catered to this market. The rise of genre painting coincided with a period of economic prosperity in the Netherlands, where a growing middle class had the disposable income to purchase art. This drawing invites us to reflect on the changing social and economic conditions of the time. What did it mean to represent rural life in a society that was becoming increasingly urban and commercial? Was this a celebration of traditional values, or a commentary on the changing nature of Dutch society? Historians can research the artist's biography, the social and economic history of the Netherlands, and the art market. Art is never made in a vacuum, it always reflects the values and concerns of the society in which it was created.