Meindert Hobbema, 'The Haarlem Lock, Amsterdam', about 1663-5
About the work
Overview
Hobbema was a specialist landscape painter – this is his only known city view, a depiction of the ordered and harmonious relationship between people and water. We are looking towards the Haarlem Lock at the point where two of Amsterdam’s most important waterways meet – the Singel on the right and the Brouwersgracht in the immediate foreground. Hobbema seems to have chosen this view to focus the viewer’s mind on the connection between this carefully regulated system of canals and the wider world.
Beyond the lock and the lock-keeper, who is controlling the water with a long lever, are the clustered masts of a dozen or so square-riggers, part of the huge Dutch merchant fleet which had mastered the high seas for Holland. To the right is one of the look-out towers which were part of the town’s fortifications from the fifteenth century. It was called the Herring-Packers' Tower (Haaringpakkerstoren), a nod to the work done in the adjoining warehouse.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- The Haarlem Lock, Amsterdam
- Artist
- Meindert Hobbema
- Artist dates
- 1638 - 1709
- Date made
- about 1663-5
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 77 × 98 cm
- Inscription summary
- Signed
- Acquisition credit
- Bequeathed by Miss Beatrice Mildmay, 1953
- Inventory number
- NG6138
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Previous owners
Provenance
It has been suggested that the present picture is identical with the ‘View along the Singel towards the Haarlem Lock and the Herring Packers’ Tower’ attributed to Jacob van Ruisdael in the sales of Catharina Backer, widow of Allard de la Court van der Voort, Leiden, 8 and 9 September 1766 (lot 163), bought by Verbeek (320 guilders) and Jan Danser Nijman, Amsterdam, 16 and 17 August 1797 (lot 225), bought by C. S. Roos (400 guilders). No. 6138 was certainly in the following sales: Pieter de Smeth van Alphen sale, Amsterdam, 1 and 2 August 1810 (lot 41), bought by J. de Vries (bought in), 1,000 guilders; Henry Croese sale, Amsterdam, 18 September 1811 (lot 31), bought by de Vries (bought in), 600 guilders; sale of paintings from the Croese collection et al., Amsterdam, 20 July 1812 (lot 18), bought by Gruijter (455 guilders). It was in the [T. G. Campbell] sale, London, 25 June 1831 (lot 90), bought by Nieuwenhuys (213 gns); [C. J.] Nieuwenhuys sale, London, 10 and 11 May 1833 (lot 68), bought by Reeve (bought in?), 405 gns; apparently also at one time in the possession of A. Brondgeest. It was in the collection of Baron J. G. Verstolk van Soelen, The Hague, by 1834; his whole collection was sold in 1846 to Thomas Baring, S. Jones Lloyd, Humphrey St John Mildmay and Chaplin, the Hobbema being among those pictures which fell to Mildmay (who died in 1853). Lent by his son, Henry Bingham Mildmay, to the RA, 1876; H. B. Mildmay sale, London, 24 June 1893 (lot 23), bought by Dr J. P. Richter (£2,310). By autumn 1921 it was in the possession of A. J. Sulley, London, who sold it in May 1923 to Alfred Mildmay (son of H. B. Mildmay), from whom it passed to his sister, Miss Beatrice Mildmay, London. Miss Beatrice Mildmay Bequest, 1953.
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School: 1600–1900’, London 1991; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
-
2008Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden AgeMauritshuis11 October 2008 - 11 January 2009National Gallery of Art (Washington DC)1 February 2009 - 3 May 2009
Bibliography
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1834C.-J. Nieuwenhuys, A Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most Eminent Painters, London 1834
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1857G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], translated from German by Elizabeth Eastlake, 3 vols, London 1857, vol. 3
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1889W.H.J. Weale and J.P. Richter, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures Belonging to the Earl of Northbrook, London 1889
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1930K.E. Simon, Jacob Van Ruisdael: Eine Darstellung seiner Entwicklung, Berlin 1930
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1938G. Broulhiet, Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709), Paris 1938
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1953I.H. Eeghen, 'Een stadsgezicht van Hobbema', Oud Holland, LXVIII/2, 1953, pp. 120-6
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1955The National Gallery, The National Gallery: 1938 - 1954, London 1955
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1960Maclaren, Neil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 2 vols, London 1960
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1966W. Stechow, Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century, London 1966
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1966A. Stokes, 'The Image in Form: A Lecture', British Journal of Aesthetics, VI/3, 1966, pp. 246-58
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1978R.H. Fuchs, Dutch Painting, London 1978
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1983C. Brown, 'Rubens' Watering Place: An Examination of His Landscape Technique', Ringling Museum of Art Journal, 1983, pp. 130-49
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1991Maclaren, Neil, revised by Christopher Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 1600-1900, 2nd edn (revised and expanded), 2 vols, London 1991
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1997R. Priem, 'The "Most Excellent Collection" of Lucretia Johanna van Winter: The Years 1809-22, with a Catalogue of the Works Purchased', Simiolus, XXV/2-3, 1997, pp. 103-96
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2000C. Denninger-Schreuder, Schilders van Amsterdam: Vier Eeuwen Stadsgezichten, Bussum 2000
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2007M.E. Wieseman and E. Greer, Dutch Painting: The National Gallery, London 2007
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2008A. van Suchtelen and A.K. Wheelock, Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age (exh. cat. Mauritshuis, 11 October 2008 - 11 January 2009; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1 February - 3 May 2009), The Hague 2008
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
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Meindert Hobbema liked nothing better than to take you for a walk. He leads us onward – patches of sun that follow one another up the canvas, but into the picture, make the image appear three-dimensional – and leaves us feeling fresh and windblown. In this painting, his trees are stunted and bent...
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This is a study for a larger picture by Meindert Hobbema in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and by comparing the two we can get an insight into how he worked. Instead of painting accurate, identifiable views based on a real scene, Hobbema – and many other landscape specialists of th...
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A rutted cart track leads straight into the middle of the picture. A group of figures are caught in a patch of sunlight while a cottage merges into the shadows. A frieze of trees stands out against a sunny glade and a cloudy sky beyond. Many of Hobbema’s landscapes were composed around these spec...
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Meindert Hobbema specialised in landscapes, and particularly woodland scenes such as this. They were not usually modelled on real views, but were composed to capture the atmosphere and harmonies of woodland life. Here the three cottages seem to merge into the underwood. Switches cut from a nearby...
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Hobbema has created a remarkable effect in this unusual painting, using the trees of the avenue to funnel our view directly into the heart of the picture and as strong verticals to take the eye upwards. Our gaze is also drawn sideways into the landscape, through both the track which turns off to...
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Many – very probably most – seventeenth-century Dutch landscape paintings do not show a real view, but were composed to capture the spirit or impression of a place. Even where they do depict somewhere specific they would often be made more aesthetically pleasing by exaggeration or rearrangement.T...
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The watermills depicted here still survive today – they are part of the former estate at Singraven, near Denekamp, one of the most easterly points of Holland. Hobbema seems to have been inspired to paint them because his teacher, Jacob van Ruisdael, had depicted the mills on several occasions.Whi...
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