Despite the high regard that Vincent van Gogh had for his cousin Anton Mauve (and the strong influence that the elder Mauve had on Vincent's early style), it was only recently that some of the very great reputation that Mauve and his fellow painters of the so-called Hague School enjoyed in their own day has been partly regained. Luckily this Museum owns an important and representative collection of the works of these artists, of whom Mauve is one of the most affecting. Mauve was a master of depicting moist, low places populated by domestic animals and their anonymous keepers. As The Return of the Flock, Laren, so convincingly demonstrates, his ability to control gentle, nearly monochromatic tones, while not losing a sense of either the place or the moment, puts him in direct and happy comparison with the two French artists he most admired: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Jean-François Millet. Joseph J. Rishel, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 201.