Landscape with Windmills near Haarlem, after Jacob van Ruisdael
John Constable1830
Dulwich Picture Gallery
London, United Kingdom
Constable made this copy of Ruisdael’s landscape when it was lent from Dulwich to the Royal Academy, London, for students to copy. Constable’s copy records the Ruisdael as it looked in the 1830s, prior to its cleaning in 1997 when the man on horseback and the boy next to him were discovered to be later additions, possibly painted in by our founder, Francis Bourgeois. These additions were removed so that the Constable version now records how the Ruisdael painting once looked - including the effect of layers of dirty varnishes, so that Constable’s version now looks ‘older’ than the conserved Dutch landscape.
- Title: Landscape with Windmills near Haarlem, after Jacob van Ruisdael
- Creator Lifespan: 1776 - 1837
- Date: 1830
- Physical Dimensions: w340 x h316 cm
- Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil
- Work Notes: DPG657 is a copy of the Dulwich Ruisdael, DPG168, made after the latter, apparently on Constable's advice, had been lent to the RA schools for copying by the students in 1830. It differs in showing a boy walking besides a man with a red coat on horseback in the right foreground. These figures were first recorded in the Ruisdael in 1835 and it is a reasonable assumption that they were there when Constable made his copy in 1831. In 1997 the boy, horse and rider were discovered to be additions and were removed.
- Work Nationality: British
- Support: Oak panel
- Provenance: Constable posthumous sale, Foster's, 15 May 1838, lot 47 ('The Windmill, from the original picture, by Jacob Ruysdael, in the Dulwich Gallery'), bt. White; R.K. Haselden, whose father had owned it for many years; Miss Forn by 1947-48; her sister Mrs Jack; Christie's, 5 May 1967, lot 173, bt. Barclay 1966-67; T.A> Gore Browne before 1970; his son James Gore Browne, from whom bt. through Johnny Van Haeften and anonymously given to the Gallery in memory of Bill and Anita Greenoff, 2006.
- Further Information: Constable had always greatly admired Ruisdael (whom he called Ruysdael in the manner of the time); together with Richard Wilson and Claude, he considered him one of the greatest landscape painters. He made frequent copies ('memoranda') of Ruisdael's works throughout his life, four appearing in his posthumous sale. This work is a copy of Jacob van Ruisdael's Landscape with Windmills near Haarlem (DPG 168), also displayed on this wall. It differs in showing a boy walking besides a man with a red coat on horseback in the right foreground. These figures were first recorded in the Ruisdael in 1835 and it is a reasonable assumption that they were there when Constable made his copy in 1831. In 1997 the boy, horse and rider were discovered to be additions and were removed. Bourgeois was not above 'improving' landscapes he had acquired. The distant church was once identified as the Groote Kerk, Haarlem.
- Artist: Constable, John
- Acquisition Method: Anonymous gift (Gift, in memory of Bill and Anita Greenoff, 2006)
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