British conservative statesman; Prime Minister 1834–35, 1841–46.
National Gallery Trustee (1827–1850).
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bt
1788 - 1850
This person is the subject of ongoing research. We have started by researching their relationship to the enslavement of people.
Biographical notes
Summary of activity
Peel’s political career began with his election as Member of Parliament for Cashel, Tipperary, in 1809. He served twice as Prime Minister from 1834–5 and 1841–46, and twice as Home Secretary, from 1822–7 and 1828–30. He was the founder of the Metropolitan Police Service, which started operating in 1829. He was a temporizer on the abolition of slavery in 1831–2, and on 15 April 1831, ‘Peel opposed Fowell Buxton’s motion to commit the House to the immediate abolition of slavery, recommending a cautious approach in accordance with the 1823 resolutions’. As Prime Minister in 1845, he authorized the establishment of an Anti-Slavery squadron, with 36 ships.
Peel was a Trustee of the Gallery from 1827 until his death. He began to form his own collection of pictures from about 1820, which, by the time of his death, included nearly seventy 17th-century Dutch and Flemish works, about 60 British pictures and drawings by Rubens and Van Dyck which had previously belonged to Thomas Lawrence. His son, Sir Robert Peel (1822-1895), acquired further works.
Neither he nor any member of family was a slave-owner, and Peel was never active in the family firm. However, the family fortune derived from cotton-spinning; and the raw material was grown by enslaved people. His father, Robert Peel (1750–1830) had been an opponent of the abolition of the slave-trade, which he saw as a threat to the cotton industry. He was one of those who presented, on 13 May 1806, to the House of Lords, the Petition from Manufacturers and Merchants of Manchester against the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill. (Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/10/8/106; <https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/tradeindustry/slavetrade/from-the-parliamentary-collections/the-british-slave-trade/petition-against-the-foreign-slave-trade-abolition-bill-page-1/> accessed 17 June 2021.) The actual Bill was passed on 23 May 1806.
Slavery connections
Neither Peel nor any member of his family was a slave-owner, and Peel was never active in the family firm. However, the family fortune was derived from cotton-spinning; and the raw material grown by enslaved people. His father, Robert Peel (d.1830) had been an opponent of the abolition of the slave-trade.
Abolition connections
Peel was a temporizer on the abolition of slavery in 1831–32.
National Gallery painting connections
Former owner: In 1871 the Gallery purchased the following paintings, the majority of the family’s collection: Ludolf Bakhuizen, A Beach Scene with Fishermen (NG818), An English Vessel and a Man-of-war in a Rough Sea off a Coast with Tall Cliffs (NG819); Nicolaes Berchem, Peasants with Four Oxen and a Goat at a Ford by a Ruined Aqueduct (NG820); Gerard ter Borch, A Woman playing a Lute to Two Men (NG864); Jan van de Cappelle, A Small Vessel in Light Airs, and Another Ashore (NG865); Gonzales Coques, A Family Group (NG821); Aelbert Cuyp, A Horseman with a Cowherd and Two Boys in a Meadow, and Seven Cows (NG822), A Herdsman with Five Cows by a River (NG823), Ubbergen Castle (NG824); Gerrit Dou, A Poulterer’s Shop (NG825); Karel Dujardin, Farm Animals in the Shade of a Tree, with a Boy and a Sleeping Herdswoman (NG826), A Woman and a Boy with Animals at a Ford (NG827), A Woman with Cattle and Sheep in an Italian Landscape (NG828); Anthony van Dyck, Rinaldo and Armida (NG877.2); After Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of the Artist (NG877); Jan Hackaert, Nicolaes Berchem, A Stag Hunt in a Forest (NG829); Jan van der Heyden, A View in Cologne (NG866); Meindert Hobbema, The Avenue at Middelharnis (NG830), The Ruins of Brederode Castle (NG831), The Watermills at Singraven near Denekamp (NG832), A Stream by a Wood (NG833); Pieter de Hooch, An Interior, with a Woman drinking with Two Men, and a Maidservant (NG834), The Courtyard of a House in Delft (NG835); Philips Koninck, An Extensive Landscape with a Hawking Party (NG836); Jan Lingelbach, Peasants loading a Hay Cart (NG837); Gabriel Metsu, A Woman seated at a Table and a Man tuning a Violin (NG838), A Man and a Woman seated by a Virginal (NG839); Frans van Mieris the Elder, A Woman in a Red Jacket feeding a Parrot (NG840); Willem van Mieris, A Woman and a Fish-pedlar in a Kitchen (NG841); Frederick de Moucheron, Figures in an Italian Garden with Fountains and Statuary (NG842); Caspar Netscher, Two Boys blowing Bubbles (NG843), A Lady teaching a Child to read, and a Child playing with a Dog (‘La Maîtresse d’école‘) (NG844), A Lady at a Spinning-wheel (NG845); Adriaen van Ostade, An Alchemist (NG846); Isack van Ostade, The Outskirts of a Village, with a Horseman (NG847), A Winter Scene (NG848); Paulus Potter, A Landscape with Cows, Sheep and Horses by a Barn (NG849); Rembrandt, Portrait of Philips Lucasz. (NG850); Sebastiano Ricci, Bacchus and Ariadne (NG851); Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Susanna Lunden(?) (’Le Chapeau de Paille‘) (NG852), A Lion Hunt (NG853.1); Jacob van Ruisdael, A Pool surrounded by Trees, and Two Sportsmen coursing a Hare (NG854), A Waterfall at the Foot of a Hill, near a Village (NG855); Jan Steen, A Young Woman playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man (NG856); David Teniers the Younger, The Four Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter (NG857-NG860), A Cottage by a River with a Distant View of a Castle (NG861), An Old Peasant caresses a Kitchen Maid in a Stable (NG862), The Rich Man being led to Hell (NG863); Adriaen van de Velde, A Farm with a Dead Tree (NG867), Peasants with Cattle fording a Stream (NG868), Golfers on the Ice near Haarlem (NG869); Willem van de Velde, Calm: A Dutch Ship coming to Anchor and Another under Sail (NG870), Dutch Vessels close Inshore at Low Tide, and Men Bathing (NG871), Dutch Ships and Small Vessels Offshore in a Breeze (NG872), The Shore at Scheveningen (NG873), An English Vessel and Dutch Ships Becalmed (NG874), Two Small Vessels and a Dutch Man-of-War in a Breeze (NG875), A Small Dutch Vessel close-hauled in a Strong Breeze (NG876); Jan Wijnants, A Landscape with a Dead Tree, and a Peasant driving Oxen and Sheep along a Road (NG883), Peasants driving Cattle and Sheep by a Sandhill, and Two Sportsmen with Dogs (NG884); Philips Wouwerman, Cavalrymen halted at a Sutler’s Booth (NG878), The Interior of a Stable (NG879), A View on a Seashore with Fishwives offering Fish to a Horseman (NG880), A White Horse, and an Old Man binding Faggots (NG881), A Dune Landscape with a River and Many Figures (NG882).
A number of the paintings were subsequently transferred to Tate: Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Nymph and Cupid: ’The Snake in the Grass' (N00885); Admiral Viscount Keppel (N00886); Doctor Samuel Johnson (N00887); Self-Portrait when Young (N00889); George IV when Prince of Wales (N00890); Lesbia (N00892); manner of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mrs Fox (N00891); Sir Thomas Lawrence, Princess Leiven (N00893); Sir David Wilkie, The Preaching of Wilkie before the Lords of the Congregation, 10th June 1559 (N00894) and studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, James Boswell, which was transferred from Tate to the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 1675).
A further group was transferred to the British Museum: Peter Paul Rubens, The Fall of the Damned (NG853.2-5), The Martyrdom of a Saint (NG853.6), The Descent of the Holy Spirit (NG853.7), The Crucifixion (NG853.8), Portrait of a Girl (NG853.9), Portrait of a Lady (NG853.10), Head of A Lady (NG853.11), Fame: Sketch for Monumental Sculpture or Design for a Frontispiece (NG853.12), Moses and Aaron: Sketch for Monumental Sculpture or Design for a Frontispiece (NG853.13), Satyrs: Sketch for Monumental Sculpture or Design for a Frontispiece (NG853.14), Hercules and Minerva: Sketch for Monumental Sculpture or Design for a Frontispiece (NG853.15), Study of a Lioness (NG853.16); Anthony van Dyck, The Crucifixion (NG877.1).
Willem van de Velde, A Dutch Ship and other Small Vessels in a Strong Breeze (NG2573), also from Peel’s collection, came to the Gallery as part of the Salting Bequest, George Salting (q.v.) in 1910.
Bibliography
D. B. Brown, 'Peel, Sir Robert', in J. Turner et al. (eds), Grove Art Online, Oxford 1998-, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T066015
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D. R. Fisher, 'PEEL, Robert (1788-1850), of 12 Stanhope Street and 4 Whitehall Gardens, Mdx. and Drayton Hall, Fazeley, Staffs.', in History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, 1820-1832, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/peel-robert-1788-1850
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J. Prest, 'Peel, Sir Robert, second baronet', in C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 1992-, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/21764
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R. G. Thorne, 'PEEL, Robert II (1788-1850), of Drayton Hall, Staffs.', in History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, 1790-1820, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/peel-robert-ii-1788-1850
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UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership, London 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
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Paintings previously owned by Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bt
(Showing 6 of 70 works)
A small fishing boat tosses on a choppy sea close to the shore, its crew energetically poling their vessel away from the clinging shingle. High puffy clouds soar and spiral in a bright sky, the surf below running fast on to the beach and ebbing to leave wet sand behind.Once a calligrapher, Bakhui...
Not on display
While many of Teniers’ paintings show an invented landscape, this view perhaps shows a castle in the distance that may one day be identified. Judging by the new shoots on the trees between the cottage and the river, this is a spring scene. But Teniers was never content with showing a pleasant vie...
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Wouwerman’s small painting of the Dutch landscape is full of incident: everywhere are little stories to tell, details to pick out. The landscape in the distance seems empty but nearer to us people enliven the scene. Two horsemen studiously ignore the beggars who approach them. They‘re followed by...
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A warship keels over in the face of an advancing storm, a Dutch flag flying boldly at its mainmast, the arms of the Province of Holland on its stern. The gun ports are open, the cannon out at the ready – probably for practice. A small fishing boat is tossed about on the crest of the wash left beh...
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A merchant ship, probably an Indiaman, comes to anchor. After a long and dangerous journey, perhaps to the Far East or the West Indies, the white sails are being lowered one by one. The flag on the foremast suggests that this is the vessel of the vice admiral of a small fleet. The crew is busy an...
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We don’t know their names, but this was undoubtedly a wealthy, fashion-conscious family, almost certainly from Antwerp where the artist, Gonzales Coques, was based. Group portraits such as this were popular among the city elite and artists incorporated gestures, looks and activities to bring the...
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Like many of Adriaen van de Velde’s paintings, this is a quiet picture. The conversation between the milkmaid and the man with the basket seems amicable, with nothing to disturb the rhythmic swish of the milk into the pail. A pig hauls itself up on its haunches, looking as if it will roll over an...
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This small, evocative painting shows the work of Aelbert Cuyp at the peak of his maturity as an artist. It’s a picture full of light and reflections, transforming a simple view of a river at evening time into visual harmony.Light puffy clouds lit by the evening sun drift overhead, leaving patches...
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A young woman takes a moment from her spinning to look out from a dark room, her gaze direct. Although she holds a long length of raw half-spun wool, her mind isn‘t on the task. She’s more interested in whoever has taken her by surprise.Netscher specialised in small genre scenes before he took to...
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At first glance, Caspar Netscher shows two delightful children, both busy. The girl is learning to read while the boy plays with the dog, his toys, including a top, thrown down on the floor.There may be moral in the painting, though it was more likely to have been bought for amusement. In a popul...
Jan Wijnants was from Haarlem, which lies in the narrow corridor of land between Amsterdam and the sea. He specialised in depicting the landscapes around the town, which were formed largely of sand blown inland from the North Sea beaches and into a series of sometimes spectacularly high dunes. So...
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This scene of rural tranquillity is typical of the work of Paulus Potter, who was famous in his lifetime for his paintings of domestic animals. The hilly terrain and summer light are more reminiscent of Italy than Holland, but these are most definitely Dutch cows. Potter has observed them with gr...
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We're looking at a landscape in the Low Countries, probably the flatlands between Nijmegen and Cleves in the eastern part of the Netherlands, which Cuyp had visited in the early 1650s. But the golden light, and that implied heat, is more reminiscent of southern Europe than the north. It was a com...
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A group of men out on a lion hunt are now being hunted themselves. In this brown monochrome sketch, Rubens – famously an accomplished painter of horses – has masterfully captured the movement of the rearing horses and thrusting spears, and the terrified faces of the men as they struggle to fend o...
A young couple seem about to strike up a duet. The woman, seated at the keyboard of a virginal, hands her partner a musical score, presumably the part for the violin on the table next to him. Scenes of music making among young people were common in seventeenth-century Dutch painting, and they wou...
There’s an air of stillness in this large painting that is unusual in Jacob van Ruisdael’s work. The clouds hang as if suspended over the forest and the leaves of trees – often restless in his other pictures – are quiet, though by no means lifeless. Reflections tremble a little in the water, and...
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This is one of the best examples of Gerrit Dou’s brilliance at depicting different surfaces and textures, like the fraying cloth crumpled underneath a bucket, the smooth stone of the sill, the feathers in the duck’s wing and the pocked skin of its breast and neck.Dou was one of the most successfu...
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An angry light breaks through threatening clouds, illuminating a wave that beats up against the side of a galjoot, the small boat keeling over with the wind. An explosion of white spray looks almost as if it is reaching up to swallow the man hauling in the foresail. The blue and white flag at the...
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In this scene of day-to-day life on the muddy shores of the North Sea, Jan van de Cappelle has depicted a virtually windless day. We see a smalschip (a traditional transport vessel), its helmsman doing his best to catch what wind he can by setting the sails out on both sides. But they hang almost...
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The picture of a hunt, with aristocratic riders wielding spears and the stag surrounded by hounds all ready for the kill, might not be to everyone’s taste today. But the speed and vitality of the animals and the huntsman blowing the horn – the stag itself moving with such energy that it still jus...
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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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This is one of at least four versions that Jan van der Heyden made of this scene of Cologne and its half-built medieval cathedral. It is an alluring view. He has captured the lengthy shadows and raking light of a bright morning in a city street populated with people from all walks of life.Most of...
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The strong wind blowing towards us in this picture is almost tangible. Water roars and tumbles over bare rocks that jut up through the foam. Clouds pile high and rush overhead, echoing the shape of the tossing trees below before they swirl and reform to make room for more, perhaps bringing gusts...
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Winter threatens in Wouwerman’s little picture. Clouds tower up. An old man crouches in the undergrowth, gathering faggots (twigs bound up to make a fire). Behind him, a woman sits with her back to him, facing the weather and nursing a baby bundled up against the cold. A gnarled tree sheds its fe...
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Isack van Ostade’s little village seems to be a hard place to live. Although there’s no snow, the grey clouds threaten and there is a feeling of bone-chilling cold. The old cottage on top of the bank is ramshackle and touched with frost, its roof hardly robust enough to keep out the weather. And...
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In the shade of a rocky cliff, a woman and a child wade in the shallow water of a ford. She looks down at the little boy as he takes a pee in the river. Images of small nude boys relieving themselves were unremarkable in the seventeenth century, although the boys were usually two or three years o...
Willem van Mieris belonged to a group of Dutch artists based in Leiden who are known as the Fijnschilders (‘fine painters’) because of their attention to accurate, realistic detail and their smooth technique. They aimed to show each object, each texture so authentically that they would seem tangi...
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There is mystery in this room. One of the figures has her back to us, so we can’t see the expression on her face. But since the man behind the table seems to be using two clay pipes as a pretend violin and bow, and his companion gestures as though conducting a duet, she may be singing.Scenes left...
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A young woman sits, one delicate hand outstretched and holding an almond to feed to a parrot. On one finger she has a thimble – she has stopped sewing to feed the bird, an African Grey that hunches over, assessing her gift with a beady eye. The model used for the young woman is thought to be Cune...
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Scenes of small groups of people making music were common in seventeenth-century Dutch painting. They reflected a popular social activity among sophisticated families and as such might symbolise the harmony of family life or friendship groups. But such parties were also an accepted way for young...
Metsu has highlighted the woman seated at the table – light from the high window falls on her bright red bodice – to confirm her as the centre of our attention.Her companion or teacher tunes his violin in the background, catching our eye with an inscrutable stare. It isn’t clear whether the viola...
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A young woman sits on a grassy bank spinning wool, distaff tucked under one arm. With a half-smile on her face, she looks with great concentration at her fingers untangling a lump in the wool. The twirling spindle hangs from her other hand. Karel Dujardin sets the animals that the young woman ten...
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An elegantly dressed young woman plays a harpsichord for a man leaning on the instrument. Music is often related to love in Dutch paintings, but in contrast to other genre scenes of this kind the couple don‘t appear to be flirting. The young woman is concentrating on her sheet of music.The Latin...
A man stoops over a fireplace, using bellows to stoke the fire that heats the contents of a pot standing in the flames. He is an alchemist in the process of trying to turn base metals into silver or gold. His shabby and chaotic surroundings suggest that he is so obsessed with his work that he has...
Exciting pictures of ships pounded by high waves with a threatening sky overhead were Ludolf Bakhuizen’s speciality. One of the finest of the late seventeenth-century Dutch marine painters, his skills in portraying the turbulence of the sea were famous. The sea in Bakhuizen’s pictures has real de...
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In this picture, Willem van de Velde the Younger displays his skills as an exceptionally gifted painter of ships. Each vessel here is accurately depicted. An English ketch in the foreground flies the flag of Saint George, and a weyschuit (a small open boat) moves almost alongside it. To the left,...
Not on display
In this enormous painting, Philips Koninck shows us a panorama of the Dutch countryside under a vast sky. What seems an almost deserted stretch of land is actually peopled with many figures: the women washing clothes in the stream, a man fishing and a small figure brandishing a stick as he rides...
Not on display
David Teniers the Younger made his fortune painting bawdy scenes like this one. They were popular with wealthy collectors who were proud of their own good manners compared with those ascribed to peasants (they also found the pictures amusing).The unfortunate young woman on her knees has lost a sh...
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A wine drinker – a stout fellow with a handsome moustache – represents Autumn in a series of paintings by David Teniers that gives each season a human form. A white sash cradles a comfortable belly, and stretched over it is a wine-coloured jacket. His fat neck disappears into the collar of his ja...
Not on display
This work depicts one of the most popular mythological themes for paintings from the late Renaissance onward: the love story between Bacchus, the god of wine, and Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete. Bacchus discovered Ariadne on the island of Naxos, where she had been abandoned by the Greek...
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A large tent or booth has been set up on top of a hill above a military camp, next to a blasted tree. They stand upright against a big, luminous sky, together filling nearly half the picture.Dramatic though this backdrop is, it’s the cavalrymen gathered in the foreground whose antics are the main...
Not on display
Possibly by Anthony van Dyck
This uproarious crowd of mythical characters is noisy and ill-behaved, but meant to make you smile. The old man who has lost his clothes in the revels is Silenus – in Roman myth, the teacher and mentor of Bacchus, the god of wine. In the seventeenth century, the Roman myths were popular as subjec...
High, scudding clouds and a restless sea bring a feeling of freshness to Willem van de Velde’s painting. Two lowered white sails seem to tumble towards the water, and echo the froth on the tops of the waves. The breeze is almost palpable, with spars, masts and vessels all leaning at different ang...
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High, light clouds drift across the wide sky. All seems quiet at the end of the day. A man with a fishing basket strapped to his back squelches across the wet sand left by the ebbing tide, and the sun is still warm enough for a group of men and boys to skinny-dip in the shallow water. Clothes are...
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The sun catches the face of a sheep lying in the shade of a tree. Light filters down through the leaves on to its thick curly fleece, painted in exquisite detail by Karel Dujardin.Dujardin has added a quirkiness to his figures, giving them real humanity. The herdswoman has found the tedious busin...
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This idyllic Italian garden with its elegant figures, classical sculptures and tall, slender Mediterranean trees is a product of Frederick de Moucheron’s imagination. As far as we know he never visited Italy, but the picture is probably based on drawings and sketches by artists who had. De Mouche...
Paintings of life on the frozen waterways of Holland during the Little Ice Age were very popular with collectors at the time. Many artists, usually known for painting rivers or landscapes, produced them, and Adriaen van de Velde was one of the most successful. But in this painting he has concentr...
The evening sun touches the sturdy cattle standing at the foot of the ruins of a Roman archway. The soft light casts shadows on the weather-worn stones, displaying the ruin’s age and former grandeur. The hills behind may have been recorded by Berchem during a possible stay in Italy, but the cows...
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Jan Wijnants specialised in pictures that depicted figures moving through this particular type of rural landscape. As far was we can tell, they weren’t usually a real view, but were composed to give a pleasing effect and an impression of the countryside around the town of Haarlem, where Wijnants...
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In seventeenth-century Holland city dwellers displayed scenes of peasant life on the walls of their homes. They enjoyed idealised pastoral scenes or, in this case, the fun of looking at the various people and activities they may have seen on visits to the country.Jan Lingelbach was increasingly i...
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This painting carries many of the hallmarks of an Italianate picture: a soft Mediterranean light, the sun still warm although night is falling, distant hills not likely to be seen in a flat Dutch landscape, and idealised peasants with their garments loosened and walking at a leisurely pace. As fa...
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When this portrait was made, Philips Lucasz. was in his thirties and an important official in the Dutch East India Company. He had been in charge of the company’s fleet, which had sailed home from the East Indies in December 1633 and was to leave Holland again on 2 May 1635, shortly after this pi...
This is almost certainly a portrait of Susanna Lunden (1599–1643), daughter of the Antwerp merchant Daniel Fourment, an old friend and client of Rubens. The portrait was probably made soon after her marriage to Arnold Lunden.It’s a highly distinctive painting – the sitter’s dark, oversized eyes a...
Not on display
After Anthony van Dyck
A young man looks out at the viewer with a piercing gaze and provocative expression. With an elegant hand gesture he points towards his chest, alluding to the fact this image is in fact a self portrait. His lips are parted, as if he is about to introduce himself – this is the Flemish painter Anth...
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The enchantress Armida and her bewitched lover, Rinaldo, a Christian knight, recline in a beautiful landscape, surrounded by attendant cupids. The scene shows a tender moment between the couple before Rinaldo’s comrades, whose helmets are visible behind the bush on the left, disturb their idyll a...
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There is a cold grey dawn, but a promise of winter sun as the wind sweeps away the clouds on a Dutch seashore. A young horseman leans down towards a woman kneeling in the shadow of his mount – she holds a large fish up towards him. A patch of light picks out the white apron of a red-cheeked woman...
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This is the first of a series of paintings by David Teniers in which the four seasons are given human form. Here, Spring is personified as a young gardener with a bushy beard, heaving a heavy pot containing a sapling. His step is jaunty and he has a gleam in his eye. His jacket looks new, and his...
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A young peasant – beardless and red-cheeked, with curly hair and a dreamy look in his eye – represents Summer in the second of Teniers' allegorical paintings of the seasons. Behind him the trees are in full leaf and the distance is hazy with heat; above, the clouds are light and puffy.The youth s...
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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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In the sunlight of a quiet afternoon this courtyard seems to radiate tranquillity. Everything is still, including the figures: a young maid, clean and calm, who holds the hand of a little girl, and the shadowy figure of a woman in the passageway to the left, presumably the child’s mother, who tur...
Stables were found everywhere in the seventeenth century – but this is no ordinary one. A peacock is perched on a branch at the entrance. Outside, there’s part of a weathered but grand building; birds nest on its roof and climbing plants drift over windows. The entrance and the trees give an air...
Life seems to amble along in this painting: there’s time for the horseman to pause, for the man beside him to communicate with his dogs and for two people to chat. The countryside setting appears almost timeless, though Isack van Ostade has explored the effects of time. Light flickers up the wall...
The fires of hell light up Teniers’s cave-like underworld with an eerie glow. An old man stands, hands raised in self-defence, his eyes wide with fear at the sight of the horrors around him. Weird creatures gather in glee to welcome another soul into the dreadful place that his greed and avarice...
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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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A brisk wind brings a small fleet of fishing pinks to shore, tossed and buffeted by the choppy waves. A fitful sun breaks through the fast moving clouds. It lights up the long curve of the wide bay and the high dunes, but there’s a sense of mistiness, suggesting a fine spray from the sea and sof...
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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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A velvet curtain drawn back from a stone window reveals a little boy, who gazes upwards at a bubble floating past him and into the darkness. In the shadows behind, a smaller child concentrates equally fiercely. Using a long pipe he blows bubbles in the soapy liquid held in a cockle shell. Already...
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Willem van de Velde was the leading Dutch marine painter of the later seventeenth century. This is one of his smallest paintings – it’s only about the size of a sheet of A4 paper.In the foreground, two boats known as kagen speed shorewards before a stiff breeze. These were sturdy, flat-bottomed v...
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The ruins of this castle seem to have been absorbed by the landscape. Aelbert Cuyp has employed the same palette of colours and the same camouflage patterns to depict the crumbling walls as he used for the autumnal woods and the hillside behind. The reflections in the still waters of the lake add...
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Teniers brings the cycle of the seasons full circle – and his series of paintings of the seasons to an end – with an old man representing Winter. Wrapped in velvet and fur, he hunches over to warm his hands at a brazier. His face is lined and wrinkled, his beard long and frosted with white. But h...
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