This wooded landscape view was formerly titled A Watermill because of the picturesque mill in the middle distance on the left. Presumably because many similar watermills exist in Hobbema’s oeuvre, a new title was chosen to emphasize the distinctive staffage figures in this work, the two men on horseback who ride along the winding path in the center of the composition. A third traveler in the lower right rests on a fallen log, while others in the distant right walk toward a church whose steeple rises behind a dense group of trees.
This work, which was first published by Charles J. Nieuwenhuys in 1834, has an intriguing history. The painting and its companion, The Old Oak, 1662 (now in Melbourne, see [fig. 1]
[fig. 1] Meindert Hobbema, The Old Oak, 1662, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest 1949/50), were discovered in 1829 by the president of the fine arts society of Groningen, P. van Arnhem, in the château of the Alberda van Dyksterhuys family, a fifteenth-century manor house situated in Pieterburen near Groningen. Van Arnhem, a collector of old paintings, was judging a local exhibition of new landscape paintings when he recognized that one of the finest works on show bore a great resemblance to paintings by Hobbema. Upon inquiry, he found out that the artist had copied a painting in the collection at château Dyksterhuys. Van Arnhem visited the château and eventually persuaded its owner, Gosen Geurt Alberda van Dyksterhuys, the last member of a family with a long and distinguished history, to sell his two large paintings by Hobbema. Shortly thereafter, however, Gosen Geurt Alberda van Dyksterhuys also received an offer from another “amateur” from Groningen, R. Gockinga. Before any transaction could be completed, Gosen Geurt died. The two interested parties eventually agreed to a joint purchase from the estate of the two paintings, which they then brought to auction in Amsterdam in 1833. At the sale Gockinga bought the present picture outright for himself, while The Old Oak was bought by the dealer Nieuwenhuys. Soon afterward the two Hobbema paintings were reunited in the collection of Colonel Biré in Brussels.
According to Gosen Geurt Alberda van Dyksterhuys, the two pictures represented views from the surroundings of the château, and were painted for the family by Hobbema. While the identical size of these extremely large paintings does suggest that they were commissioned pieces, no evidence exists to substantiate this family tradition. In any event, neither work was painted from nature, for both are clearly based on compositions by Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, c. 1628/1629 - 1682). The Old Oak, signed and dated 1662, is derived from Ruisdael’s etching A Forest Marsh with Travelers on a Bank. The National Gallery of Art painting, which is also signed and dated, is a close variant of Ruisdael’s 166[1?] painting of a watermill, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam [fig. 2]
[fig. 2] Jacob van Ruisdael, Landscape with Watermill, 166(1?), oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Photo © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In the Washington painting one not only sees a comparable watermill, but also the same large oak tree rising to the left of the path with its roots clinging to the river bank. Although the last digit of the date is obscured and difficult to read, it appears to be 1662. That date is not only consistent with that of the Melbourne painting, it is also justifiable on compositional and stylistic grounds.
Among Hobbema’s other works related to The Travelers, the most similar in composition is an undated painting formerly in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio [fig. 3]
[fig. 3] Meindert Hobbema, Landscape with Watermill, c. 1662, oil on canvas, private collection. This painting is also Hobbema’s closest adaptation of Ruisdael’s Landscape with Watermill in the Rijksmuseum. With the exception of the staffage figures, Hobbema has here copied all of the compositional elements, including the cut logs strewn on the path by the woodsman. Since The Travelers is a freer adaptation of the Ruisdael composition than is this work, it almost certainly was painted later.
The evolution of this composition for Hobbema does not, however, begin with Ruisdael’s work. At least three other paintings have similar compositions, but with a simpler mill and a differently shaped tree in the foreground. Hobbema certainly painted the former Toledo and the Washington versions, which were influenced by Ruisdael, after he painted the three scenes with the simpler watermill; nevertheless, since one of these latter works is signed and dated 1662, the time frame in which this evolution occurred must have been very narrow. Hobbema and Ruisdael may both have derived their compositions from an actual site, although Hobbema’s earlier watermill compositions may more accurately reflect that site than do Ruisdael’s. Ruisdael often freely altered the character of buildings to give his scenes added drama and grandeur. The changes in Hobbema’s conception of the scene are thus fascinating evidence of the nature of Ruisdael’s influence on his young protégé at this stage of his career.
Despite the relatively old provenance of the two works from the château Dyksterhuys, their attribution to Hobbema was initially called into question. In 1842 Smith wrote that when this painting and its companion appeared in the Amsterdam sale of 1833, they “were then considered by several connoisseurs to be by the hand of some imitator of Hobbema, in which opinion the writer then coincided.” He added, however, “lining and judicious cleaning have since so greatly improved them, that he feels no hesitation in now recording them among the works of the master.”
Although the attribution of the painting to Hobbema has never been doubted in subsequent years, Smith’s initial hesitation is understandable considering that the painting style lacks many of the nuances of touch found in Hobbema’s other works from the early 1660s. Brushstrokes are quite regular, and forms are comparatively simplified, particularly in the reeds in the lower left and the foliage in the bushes on the right. As a result, the painting does not exhibit the warmth and seeming spontaneity of Hobbema’s more characteristic landscape views.
Various explanations can be advanced for the relative dryness of the painting, and, to judge from photographs, its companion. Primary among them is that both works are exceptionally large in scale for Hobbema and are replicas of smaller variants he made of compositions by Ruisdael. These factors may have affected Hobbema’s manner of painting and rendered his style less spontaneous than usual. Although nothing is known of his workshop practices, it is also possible that these paintings were produced in Hobbema’s studio under his direct supervision. The staffage figures, in any event, are by another hand, which is a common occurrence in Hobbema’s paintings. One nineteenth-century reference plausibly suggests that they are by Barent Gael (before 1635–after 1681).
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
April 24, 2014
