A View on a High Road

1665

Meindert Hobbema

Artist, Dutch, 1638 - 1709

Several people sit, stand, or stroll along a dirt road that winds from the lower left corner of this horizontal landscape painting into the distance, past trees and cottages under a vivid blue sky. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the canvas, and the cloud studded, azure-blue sky fills the space above. Sunlight filtered through puffy white and steel-gray clouds illuminates the scene from the upper right, creating patches of light and shadow throughout. The road meanders through the center of the composition and is lined with dark and sage-green shrubs, scrubby growth, and gnarled, crooked trees. Closest to us and to our left, two tan cottages are tucked into deep shade created by a grove of several tall trees. The cottages have steeply pitched roofs and windows flanked by gray or brick-red shutters. Three people sit and stand near the path outside the closest building. A short distance to our right, a man sitting on a fallen log carries walking stick and a bundle on his back. His body faces us but his head is turned to our right to gaze toward the man and woman about to stroll past him, headed in our direction. The woman wears a black dress over a white skirt, and a white head covering and shawl. The man wears a brimmed hat with a red decoration, a brown coat with gold buttons down the front and a wide white collar, and heeled shoes. Beyond them, the road curves to our left around a small pond in front of the second cottage. Two people crouch to set a toy sailboat afloat by the edge of the pond, and a brown dog sniffs the ground nearby. Two more people stand talking at the doorway to the second cottage and another dog leaps up at the half-door. Further along the road, the light becomes stronger, illuminating a horse, rider, and another person walking alongside the horse. The road continues to curve around a butter-yellow cottage nestled in a grove of trees on the right. A sunny field is visible in the far distance.

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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.

In this work, the dirt road meanders diagonally through the village, passing half-timbered houses nestled among the trees. Figures strolling along the road or resting beside it are integrated harmoniously into this peaceful pastoral setting. Hobbema often had other artists paint staffage figures in his works. The elegantly dressed couple walking along the road was painted by one such unidentified collaborator. The idyllic qualities of Hobbema’s scenes, combined with the realistic effects of light and atmosphere, appealed tremendously to English collectors. In the nineteenth century, this painting along with its possible pendant (now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague), belonged to the collection of the Duke of Westminster.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 47

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 93.1 x 127.8 cm (36 5/8 x 50 5/16 in.)
    framed: 122.6 x 158.4 cm (48 1/4 x 62 3/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1937.1.62

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: A View on a High Road, 1665

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

Mme Jean Etienne Fizeau [née Marie Anne Massé, d. 1790], Amsterdam; (sale, Amsterdam, 27 April 1791);[1] Welbore Ellis Agar [1735-1805], London; by inheritance to his illegitimate sons, Welbore Felix Agar [d. 1836] and Sir Emmanuel Felix Agar [1781-1866]; sold 1806 to Robert Grosvenor, 1st marquess of Westminster [1767-1845];[2] by inheritance to his grandson, Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st duke of Westminster [1825-1899], Grosvenor House, London; purchased 1912 by Baron Alfred Charles de Rothschild [1842-1918], London and Halton House, near Wendover, Buckinghamshire;[3] bequeathed to his illegitimate daughter, Almina Victoria, Countess of Carnarvon [c. 1877-1969, later Mrs. Ian Onslow Dennistoun], London; sold 1924 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[4] sold November 1924 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] The Fizeau (variously spelled Fiseau, Fezeau, or Fiziau) sale was known to Frits Lugt not from an actual example of the catalogue, but because it is listed in Adriaan van der Willigen, Naamlijst van Nederlandsche kunst catalogi veelal met derzelver prijzen en namen, van af 1731-1861, welke de verzameling uitmakern van A. van der Willigen, Haarlem, 1873.
[2] The Ellis Agar Collection was to be sold at Christie's, London, 2-3 May 1806, and a sale catalogue was produced, but before the auction could take place the complete collection was instead sold to Lord Grosvenor, for 30,000 guineas (George Redford, Art Sales, 1628-1887, 2 vols., London, 1888: 1:95). The bill of sale is preserved at the Grosvenor Estate Office Archive; the Hobbema is number 42 on this list (information kindly provided by Michael Hall, curator to Edmund de Rothschild, letter of 5 March 2002, in NGA curatorial files).
[3] The date of Alfred's acquisition of the picture was kindly provided by Michael Hall, curator to Edmund de Rothschild; see his "Rothschild Picture Provenances" from 1999 and his letter of 27 February 2002, in NGA curatorial files, in which he cites relevant documents in The Rothschild Archive, London.
[4] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 292, box 437, folders 4 and 5; copies in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1834

  • British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, London, 1834, either no. 136 or no. 139.

1845

  • British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, London, 1845, either no. 49 or no. 52.

1871

  • Works of Old Masters, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1871, either no. 35 or no. 41.[1]

1925

  • Paintings by Old Masters from Pittsburgh Collections, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1925, no. 28.

  • A Loan Exhibition of Dutch Paintings, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1925, no. 11.

Bibliography

1820

  • Young, John. A Catalogue of the Pictures at Grosvenor House, London. London, 1820: 37, no. 109, etched repro.

1829

  • Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829-1842: 6(1835):134–135, no. 65.

1834

  • British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom. British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom. Exh. cat. British Institution, London, 1834: either no. 136 or no. 139.

1840

  • Young, John. Catalogue of the Marquess of Westminster's collection of pictures in Grosvenor House. London, 1840: 37, no. 109, etched repro.

1844

  • Jameson, Anna Brownell Murphy. Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London. London, 1844: 266, no. 99.

1845

  • British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom. Catalogue of pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French, and English masters: with which the proprietors have favoured the institution. Exh. cat. British Institution, London, 1845: either no. 49 or no. 52.

1854

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss.. 3 vols. Translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake. London, 1854: 2:166.

  • Jervis-White-Jervis, Lady Marian. Painting and Celebrated Painters, Ancient and Modern. 2 vols. London, 1854: 2:225, 344.

1859

  • Thoré, Théophile E. J. (William Bürger). "Hobbema." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 4 (October 1859): 33.

1861

  • Blanc, Charles. "Isaac Ostade" (vol. 1) and "Minderhout Hobbema" (vol. 2). In École hollandaise. 2 vols. Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles 1-2. Paris, 1861: 1:10; 2:12 (each artist's essay paginated separately).

1871

  • Burlington Fine Arts Club. Exhibition of the works of Old Masters. Exh. cat. Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1871: either no. 35 or no. 41.

1890

  • Michel, Émile. Hobbema et les paysagistes de son temps en Hollande. Les Artistes Célèbres. Paris, 1890: 19, 50.

1891

  • Cundall, Frank. The Landscape and Pastoral Painters of Holland: Ruisdael, Hobbema, Cuijp, Potter. Illustrated biographies of the great artists. London, 1891: 58, 158.

1906

  • Wurzbach, Alfred von. Niederlandisches Kunstler-Lexikon. 3 vols. Vienna, 1906-1911: 1(1906):691.

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):394-395, no. 121.

1913

  • Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813–1912. 5 vols. London, 1913-1915: 2(1913):515 or 517, nos. 49, 52, or 35.

1925

  • Carnegie Institute. An Exhibition of Paintings by Old Masters from the Pittsburgh Collections. Exh. cat. Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1925: no. 28.

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Loan Exhibition of Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. Exh. cat. Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1925: no. 11.

1930

  • Rosenberg, Jakob. "Meindert Hobbema: Country Road with Houses and Trees on Either Side." In Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, ed. London, 1930: n.p., pl. 59.

  • Rosenberg, Jakob. "Meindert Hobbema: Country Road with Houses and Trees on Either Side." In Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections. Edited by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. London, 1930: no. 59, repro.

1931

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Masterpieces of Landscape Painting in American Collections." The Fine Arts 18, no. 1 (December 1931): 27, repro.

1934

  • Döhmann, Karl, and W. H. Dingeldein. Singraven: de Geschiedenis van een Twentsche Havezate. 4 vols. Brussels, 1934: 3:144-145.

1935

  • Tietze, Hans. Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika. Vienna, 1935: 338, no. 194, repro.

1938

  • Broulhiet, Georges. Meindert Hobbema (1638–1709). Paris, 1938: 59, 196, 401, no. 189, repro.

1939

  • Tietze, Hans. Masterpieces of European Painting in America. New York, 1939: 322, no. 194, repro.

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 97-98, no. 62.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 240, repro. 27.

1949

  • National Gallery of Art. Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 99, repro.

1960

  • Baird, Thomas P. Dutch Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art 7. Washington, 1960: 22, color repro.

1965

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

1966

  • Stechow, Wolfgang. Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century. Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art 1. London, 1966: 78.

1968

  • Frick Collection. The Frick Collection: An Illustrated Catalogue. 2 vols. Vol. 1, Paintings: American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German. New York, 1968: 1:224.

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 59, repro.

1974

  • Fitzwilliam Museum. Landscapes from the Fitzwilliam. Exh. cat. Hazlitt Gooden & Fox, London. Cambridge, 1974: 32.

1975

  • National Gallery of Art. European paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Washington, 1975:174, repro.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 295, no. 398, color repro.

1979

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 77, pl. 65.

1982

  • Robertson, Alexander, and Christopher Wright. Dutch Seventeenth Century Paintings from Yorkshire Public Collections. Exh. cat. Leeds City Art Gallery. Leeds, 1982: 16.

1983

  • Hanhisalo, Judith Evans. Enjoying art: painting, sculpture, architecture, and the decorative arts. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1983: 156-157, fig. 111.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 295, no. 391, color repro.

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1984: 38-39, color repro.

1985

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, 1985: 202, repro.

1987

  • Sutton, Peter C. Masters of 17th-century Dutch landscape painting. Exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Museum of Art. Boston, 1987: 347.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1992: 138, repro.

1994

  • Minor, Vernon Hyde. Art history's History. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1994: 118, fig. 20.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 123-127, color repro. 125.

  • Ploeg, Peter van den. Meindert Hobbema: Wooded landscape with cottages - A major acquisition for the Netherlands. The Hague, 1995: unpaginated brochure, fig. 6.

  • Keyes, George S. "Meindert Hobbema's Wooded Landscape with a Water Mill." The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin 67 (1995): 48, fig. 7.

2003

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain. Translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake. Facsimile edition of London 1854. London, 2003: 2:166.

2005

  • Wiemann, Elsbeth, Jenny Gaschke, and Mona Stocker. Die Entdeckung der Landschaft: Meisterwerde der niederländischen Kunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Exh. cat. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Cologne, 2005: 109, no. 37, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: m. hobbema. / 1665

Wikidata ID

Q20177611

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