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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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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.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

A View on a High Road

Meindert Hobbema

Date
1665
Medium
oil on canvas
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.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1937.1.62
Credit line
Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Time span
1651 to 1700
Department
CNE-B
Original NGA record Wikidata

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • Baroque
  • Dutch
  • Rustic
  • Netherlands
  • landscape
  • Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century (NGA Online Editions)
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.

Inscription

lower left: m. hobbema. / 1665

NGA object ID 69. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.