(bapt. Enkhuizen, 20 Nov. 1625; bur. Amsterdam, 17 Jan. 1654). Dutch painter and etcher of animals in landscapes, active in Delft, The Hague, and Amsterdam. His best-known work, the life-size Young Bull (1647, Mauritshuis, The Hague), was in the 19th century one of the most famous of all Dutch paintings. Subsequent taste has found its detailed and precise manner rather dry and laboured and preferred his more characteristic works, which are much smaller. His speciality was scenes of cattle and sheep in sunlit meadows. His father Pieter Potter (c.1600–1663) was a versatile minor painter, working in all the main genres of the day.