Village near a Pool

c. 1670

Meindert Hobbema

Associated Names
Meindert Hobbema

Artist, Dutch, 1638 - 1709

This painting shows a landscape with several buildings near a body of water. Closest to us, near the bottom right corner, a person in red leans over a wooden fence to cast a fishing rod into the water. The fence is surrounded by tall grass and bushes with small pink flowers. On the right, a path leads up towards the buildings. Two people and several dogs walk along the path towards us and away from the buildings, emerging from some tall dark trees. One person rides a white horse, while the other appears to hold a stick with several birds sitting on it, and offers a bird up to the rider. These people are in shadow and their details are hard to discern. Beyond them, the path curves by two large, white buildings with pointed red roofs. As the path curves to the left in the distance, it passes through a grassy plain near the edge of the water. More people can be seen, one walking along the path and two sitting by rocks near the water. The path leads towards a small village to the left of center. The village has more cottages and a church with a steeple in the distance. The sky above the scene is light blue-gray with fluffy white clouds, and the color palette includes dark greens, browns, and grays.

Media Options

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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.

Although Village near a Pool has many beautiful components and stylistic qualities, particularly in the background, it has suffered from losses and overpainting in the large foreground trees. The architecture of the buildings is typical for the province of Overijssel in the eastern part of the Netherlands.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 81 x 107 cm (31 7/8 x 42 1/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1942.9.32

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Village near a Pool, c. 1670

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Count Santar, Lisbon, and around 1850, London.[1] (Hamburger, Paris); sold 1909 to Peter A. B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park. Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeent Century, 8 vols., trans. Edward G. Hawke, London, 1907-1927: 4:385, no. 47.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1907

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. 8 vols. Translated by Edward G. Hawke. London, 1907-1927: 4(1912):368, no. 47.

1913

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis, and Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Pictures in the collection of P. A. B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: Early German, Dutch & Flemish Schools. Philadelphia, 1913: unpaginated, repro.

1923

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 72, repro.

1938

  • Broulhiet, Georges. Meindert Hobbema (1638–1709). Paris, 1938: 152, 391, no. 100, repro.

1942

  • National Gallery of Art. Works of art from the Widener collection. Washington, 1942: 5.

1948

  • National Gallery of Art. Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 61, repro.

1959

  • National Gallery of Art. Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. Reprint. Washington, DC, 1959: 61, repro.

1965

  • National Gallery of Art. Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. Washington, 1965: 68.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 60, repro.

1975

  • National Gallery of Art. European paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Washington, 1975: 176, repro.

1985

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, 1985: 203, repro.

1990

  • Broos, Ben P. J., ed. Great Dutch Paintings from America. Exh. cat. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The Hague and Zwolle, 1990: 43 fig. 30.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 130-132, color repro. 131.

2013

  • Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 245, 247, 248, 251.

Wikidata ID

Q20177639

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