''Drawing the Eel'' is a mid 17th century painting by Dutch artist

Salomon van Ruysdael Salomon van Ruysdael (c. 1602, Naarden – buried 3 November 1670, Haarlem) was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter. He was the uncle of Jacob van Ruisdael.

. Done in oil on wood, the painting depicts a traditional Dutch festival pastime of '' palingtrekken'', translatable to "Eel pulling" or "Eel drawing". Van Ruysdael's work is in the collection of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, and is considered historian

Walter Liedtke Walter Arthur Liedtke, Jr. (August 28, 1945 – February 3, 2015) was an American art historian, writer and Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was known as one of the world's leading scholars of Dutch an ...

to be "One of the finest paintings acquired by the Museum in its founding".Walter Liedtke. ''Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art''. New York, 2007, vol. 1, p. 20; vol. 2, pp. 816–18, no. 189, colorpl. 189, fig. 235

Description

Set in a mid 17th century Dutch village, ''Drawing the Eel'' depicts a number of people attending a wintertime festival. The crowd is congregated around a structure (presumed to be an inn), watching children partake in an activity - commonly known as ''palingtrekken'', or eel pulling - in which an eel strung on a line is plucked down by riders passing on horseback. The painting has been remarked upon for its heavy inclusion of the sky (taking up two-thirds of the painting) and for van Ruysdael's excellent use of blue as a color. The Met acquired ''Drawing the Eel'' as part of its foundational art purchase in 1871, just prior to the museum's opening in 1872.

References

{{Reflist 1650 paintings 17th-century paintings Paintings by Salomon van Ruysdael Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Eels Animals in art