New balls please: how artist spared 17th century blushes

The Bull by Paulus Potter is one of the star paintings at the Mauritshuis in The Hague, a bucolic image of animals and a farmer.

- Senay Boztas

But new research suggests the painting has unexpected hidden depths: conservators restoring the artwork say the bull’s testicles were originally much larger, and appeared to have been halved in size by the artist to respect 17th-century sensibilities.

“We found Potter made lots of changes,” said Abbie Vandivere, a conservator. “[The bull’s] balls were bigger and lower, his whole back end was shifted - but, indeed, the balls are the biggest change.”

The surprise emerged when a team of conservators, who have been working for 18 months to restore the painting, made X-rays to understand how Potter had created his composition of farming life.