Potter painted this scene just after the conclusion of the Eighty Years War against the Spanish in 1648. The Dutch Republic is symbolised by the cow and the meadow, in which it is now permitted to graze undisturbed. A modern equivalent is to imagine it painted in 1946 and depicting a bulldog on the White Cliffs of Dover.

Acquired by George IV in 1814, when Prince Regent, from the Baring Collection