A Wooded Landscape
Meindert Hobbema·1663
Historical Context
Hobbema's Wooded Landscape from 1663 shows him at the peak of his powers — the warm afternoon light filtering through oak and birch foliage, the winding path leading into the middle distance, the still water reflecting sky and trees — all rendered with his characteristic combination of painstaking observation and confident compositional organization. By 1663, Hobbema had developed his distinctive approach to Dutch woodland painting within the tradition established by Ruisdael, creating a body of work that would be among the most collected in England throughout the eighteenth century. Gainsborough copied his compositions to study their management of light through foliage, and the influence on English landscape painting was profound.
Technical Analysis
Hobbema's technique carefully differentiates tree species through their specific foliage patterns and growth habits. The water and sky provide luminous reflections and atmospheric depth, while the careful gradation of tones from dark foreground to bright distance creates convincing spatial recession. The warm palette creates the sunny, inviting atmosphere.
Provenance
Thomas Cobbe [1733-1814], Newbridge House, Donabate, near Dublin, by 1770;[1] gift 1810, with the Cobbe estates and painting collection, to his grandson, Charles Cobbe [1782-1857]; sold 1839 through Michael Gernon to (Thomas Brown, London); sold 4 April 1840 to Robert Stayner Holford, M.P. [1808-1892], Dorchester House, London, and Westonbirt, Gloucestershire;[2] by inheritance to his son, Lieut.-Col. Sir George Lindsay Holford, K.C.V.O. [1860-1926];[3] purchased 1901 through (Charles J. Wertheimer, London) by J. Pierpont Morgan [1837-1913], New York;[4] by inheritance to his son, J.P. Morgan, Jr. [1867-1943], New York; consigned February 1935 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); sold 13 December 1935 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 24 June 1937 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[5] gift 1937 to NGA. [1] Thomas Cobbe may have acquired the painting by Hobbema upon the recommendation of the Rev. Matthew Pilkington (1701–1774), who was private secretary to Thomas’ father, Charles Cobbe (1686–1765), the Archbishop of Dublin. Pilkington wrote enthusiastically about the Hobbema, then in Cobbe’s collection, in his book _The Gentleman’s and Connoisseur’s Dictionary of Painters_ (London, 1770), 288. The Knoedler prospectus for the painting (in NGA curatorial files) says the painting was owned by the elder Charles Cobbe (Thomas’ father) and then inherited by the younger Charles Cobbe, who is incorrectly identified as the elder Charles’ grandson, when he was in fact the great-grandson. The prospectus does not name Thomas. [2] For the painting’s early provenance see Alastair Laing, ed., _Clerics & Connoisseurs: The Rev. Matthew Pilkington, the Cobbe Family and the Fortunes of an Irish Art Collection through Three Centuries_, Exh. cat., The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, London, 2001: 9, 50-51, 71, 87-89, 116, no. 24, 373 n. 11 for Wheelock and Cobbe essay. [3] _The Holford Collection, Dorchester House_, 2 vols., Oxford, 1927, 2: ix, produced by the executors of Sir G.L. Holford's estate, says that the Hobbema that had belonged to "Mr." (i.e. R.S.) Holford was sold to help pay his death duties. Holford also owned another painting that came to the National Gallery of Art by way of the Andrew W. Mellon Collection, Anthony van Dyck's portrait of Marchesa Balbi (1937.1.49). [4] "In the Sale Room," _Connoisseur_ 1 (September-December 1901): 190. The Knoedler prospectus (in NGA curatorial files) says this sale took place in 1905. [5] The painting was Knoedler no. CA 787. See the letter from Nancy C. Little, librarian, M. Knoedler & Co., New York, to Gregory M.G. Rubinstein, 12 September 1987; the Knoedler bill of sale to Mellon; and Mellon collection records, all in NGA curatorial files.
