[from press materials] [click on any of the pictures for larger versions]
The Bull

Issue date: 15 January

To mark the unveiling of the restored painting by Paulus Potter, “The Bull,” PostNL, in collaboration with the Mauritshuis art museum [English language website and Wikipedia entry] in The Hague, will release the “The Bull” stamp sheet on January 15, 2026. The stamps feature the main characters from the 1647 painting: the cow, the oak tree, the farmer, the bull, and the sheep. A sheet of 5 stamps costs €7.00 and are available only from PostNL’s philatelic outlets and in the Mauritshuis gift shop.

The PostNL stamp program allows the flexibility to issue stamps to commemorate special events, such as this.

What makes the 1647 oil painting The Bull so remarkable is that such an ordinary thing as a bull appears on this enormous canvas. At 236.5 x 341 cm (about 93 x 134 inches, or 7 feet 9 inches by 11 feet), Paulus Potter (1625-1654) paid meticulous attention to the smallest details, such as the skylark, the green frog in the foreground, the flies on the bull’s back, and the cow’s wet nose with whiskers. The painting is therefore known as the epitome of Dutch naturalistic painting.

The bull looks at the viewer, as do the reclining cow and the standing ram. Potter has rendered the animals’ coats in detail, with thickly applied layers of paint. Even the marks of the shearing are visible on the reclining dairy sheep, which has just been shorn.

During the nearly two-year restoration, yellowed varnish layers were removed, as well as most of the retouching paint from previous restorations. The painting was then given a new layer of varnish that discolors more slowly. Only then did the restorers retouch the damaged areas. By working on the varnish, the restoration work is always reversible.

Janse depicted the painting in its entirety on the stamp sheet margin, extending below the five stamps. The stamps themselves feature portraits of the various protagonists in the painting: the cow, the oak tree, the farmer, the bull, and the sheep. The characters are described in large capital letters on the stamps, in a vibrant yellow. The same typography is applied to the sheet margin, alongside the green frog, the lark, and the willow. The name of the painter Paulus Potter also appears on the sheet margin and the stamps, either above, below, or above the title of the issue, “The Bull.”

Technical Specifications:
Stamp size: 30 x 40 mm (wxh)
Sheet size: 170 x 122 mm (wxh)
Plain paper with phosphor print
Gummed gum
Printing technique: Offset
Printing colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and gold
Count of 6,000 sheets
Appearance: Sheet of 5 frame stamps in 5 different designs
Value indication: 1 for mail up to 20 grams destined for the Netherlands
Design: Frank Janse, Gouda
Printing company: Royal Joh. Enschedé B.V., Haarlem
Item number: 860018