Provenance

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur K. Wheelock

Wheelock, Arthur K. and Susan H.
Wheelock, Arthur K. Jr.

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We look across a rutted, dirt road at a rickety wooden gate that leans precipitously to our right, at the same angle as the bare tree behind it in this horizontal landscape painting. The road curves from the lower right corner to the center of the composition, and continues back over a low rise. The gate leans back at an angle next to the road, near the lower right center of the painting. An area in shadow to our right could be the fence continuing along in front of a building with a sloping, moss-green roof that echoes the angle of the gate and tree. The bare branches of the tree twist into the sky from the leaning trunk. A tuft of laurel-green trees peeks up over the road where it passes through the gate. There is a fence post and scrubby bush on the left side of the road. Closer inspection reveals a few people, loosely painted, tucked into the landscape with one to our right of the tree and two just over the hill beyond the gate. A few swipes of white near that pair could be sheep or other animals walking along the road in front of them. Finally, a person, notably tiny in scale so out of proportion to the rest of the scene, stands holding a staff in the shadow cast by the gate. The sky above has white and straw-yellow clouds sweeping up from the horizon, which comes a quarter of the way up the composition, against a dove-gray sky.
Pieter Molijn, Landscape with Open Gate, c. 1630/1635, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund and Gift of Arthur K. and Susan H. Wheelock, 1986.10.1

Landscape with Open Gate

Pieter Molijn · c. 1630/1635 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1986.10.1