A Farm in the Sunlight
Meindert Hobbema1668
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Meindert Hobbema studied under the noted landscape artist Jacob van Ruisdael, and quite a few of his compositions evolved from the work of his erstwhile master. Hobbema approached nature in a straightforward manner, depicting picturesque, rural scenery enlivened by the presence of peasants or hunters. He often reused favorite motifs such as old watermills, thatch-roofed cottages, and embanked dikes, rearranging them into new compositions. Hobbema’s rolling clouds allow patches of sunshine to illuminate the rutted roads or small streams that lead back into rustic woods. All six of the National Gallery’s canvases by Hobbema share these characteristics.
The Farm in the Sunlight has long been esteemed as one of Hobbema’s finest paintings. It seems to have been one of a pair, its companion piece being The Mill, now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, but the paintings were separated at a sale in 1833. In addition to compositional and stylistic similarities, both paintings have a vertical format—rare in Hobbema’s work—strengthening the argument that they were pendants. The watermill in the Louvre painting has been identified as the mill of a country estate in the province of Overijssel, and the half-timbered farmhouse with the high-peaked roof in the Farm in the Sunlight is representative of the architecture of the eastern provinces. This refined painting covers a preliminary sketch that Hobbema executed rapidly in rough paint strokes; he then painted the sky first, leaving reserves for the trees and the landscape.
- Title: A Farm in the Sunlight
- Creator: Meindert Hobbema
- Date Created: 1668
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 81.9 x 66.4 cm (32 1/4 x 26 1/8 in.)
- Provenance: R. van Smidt, Brussels.[1] Corneille Louis Reijnders [d. 1821], Brussels, possibly by 1788; (William Buchanan, London);[2] purchased 1817 by George Watson Taylor, M.P. [d. 1841], London and later Erlestoke Park, Devizes, Wiltshire;[3] (his sale, Christie's, London, 13-14 June 1823, 2nd day, no. 56, bought in);[4] (Taylor sale, at Erlestoke Park by Robins, 9 July - 1 August 1832, 14th day [July 24], no. 69);[5] (Charles J. Nieuwenhuys, Brussels and London); (his sale, Christie & Manson, London, 10-11 May 1833, no. 128, bought in).[6] (Henri Héris [b. 1790], Brussels); Leopold I, King of Belgium [1790-1865], Palais Royal, Brussels, by 1839;[7] by inheritance to his son, Leopold II, King of Belgium [1835-1909], Brussels; purchased May 1909 with paintings from the royal collection by (F. Kleinberger & Co., Paris and New York); sold 1910 to August de Ridder [1837-1911], Schönberg, near Frankfurt-am-Main;[8] (his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 2 June 1924, no. 26); (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); sold December 1924 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.;[9] deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA. [1] According to the 1823 Taylor sale catalogue. [2] According to the 1833 Nieuwenhuys sale catalogue, which does not include William Buchanan's name, "Reynders" bought the painting in Amsterdam in 1788, and Taylor purchased it in 1817 from him. The Knoedler's prospectus (in NGA curatorial files), prepared at the time of the 1924 sale to Mellon, lists Buchanan as the purchaser from Reijnders in 1817 and the seller to Taylor in an unspecified year. Perhaps Buchanan, a Scottish dealer with agents on the continent, handled the sale from Reijnder to Taylor. [3] Georges Broulhiet, _Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709)..._, Paris, 1938: 437, and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, _A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century..._, 8 vols., trans. from the German ed., London, 1907-1927: 4:362. In the general election return of 1826, Taylor's address was given as Erlestoke Park, Wiltshire, while in earlier elections he was said to be from London--Saville Row in 1816, Portland Place in 1818 and 1820 (see the letter from C.C. Pond, House of Commons Information Office, London, 12 May 1986, in NGA curatorial files). He died in Edinburgh. [4] Different copies (see NGA curatorial files) of the 1823 sale catalogue document varying results for lot 56: sold for 800 guineas to "Seguire" (results sheet bound into the copy in Christie's Archives); sold for 800 guineas with the buyer unrecorded (paper copy in NGA Library); sold for 840 guineas to "Seguire" (photocopy and Lugt Fiche no. 2636, both in NGA Library); sold with its pendant, lot 55, for 1,750 guineas to Lord Grosvenor (Knoedler fiche of British sales in NGA Library; an additional note is difficult to read); both "bot in" and sold to "Seager" for 840 guineas (photocopy in NGA curatorial file, source not recorded). However, because the painting appeared again nine years later in Taylor's 1832 sale on the premises of his residence, it seems likely that it was indeed bought in. "Seguire" and "Seager" probably refer to William Seguier (1771-1843), the dealer, restorer, and first Keeper of the National Gallery, London. When Taylor was forming his collection, Seguier acted as an advisor. [5] Various sources say that the picture was "sold by his heirs in 1832," but Taylor did not die until 1841 (a date confirmed by the librarian at the House of Commons, and the notice of Taylor's death on 6 June in the Supplement to _The Times_ of 12 June 1841). This error may have arisen because the 1832 sale was described as containing the "magnificent property" of George Watson Taylor, a description that could easily be interpreted as signifying the estate of someone who had died. [6] The painting is recorded as being sold to "Searle" (see George Redford, _Art Sales_, 2 vols., London, 1888: 2:229; Algernon Graves, _Art Sales..._, London, 1921: 2:30; and an e-mail of 8 August 2007 from Marijke Booth of Christie's Archive Department, London, in NGA curatorial files). However, as Geneviève Tellier has pointed out (e-mail of 7 August 2007, in NGA curatorial files), Nieuwenhuys writes in 1834 that the painting is still in his possession; see C.J. Nieuwenhuys, _A Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most Eminent Painters..._, London, 1834: 138-139. [7] Henri Héris, "Sur la vie et les ouvrages de Meindert Hobbema," _La Renaissance: Chronique des Arts et de la Littérature_ 54 (1839): 7. Geneviève Tellier thinks it is probable that Leopold I purchased the painting from Héris, who sold other paintings to the royal family at this time (see her letter, 12 November 2007, to Arthur Wheelock, in NGA curatorial files, and her dissertation, _Leopold II et le marché de l’art américain: histoire d’une vente singulière_, Brussels, 2010). There are two red wax seals on the painting’s stretcher, each depicting two lions and a crown, that are likely seals from the Belgian royal collection. 8] After Ridder’s death his collection went on loan to the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie in Frankfurt, and in 1913 was put on exhibition briefly in New York and made available for private sale through F. Kleinberger Galleries. [9] Nancy C. Little, librarian, M. Knoedler & Co., New York, says that the painting (Knoedler no. 15993) was bought by Knoedler from Lair Dubreuil, Paris, in June 1924 and was sold to Mr. Mellon in December of the same year (letter, 12 September 1987, in NGA curatorial files.) An annotated copy of the De Ridder sale catalogue in the NGA library does not, however, mention Dubreuil, and gives the buyer as Knoedler.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on canvas
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