House on the Gein, 1741

House on the Gein, 1741 takes its unusual subtitle — identifying a date carved or marked on the building itself — from a farmhouse beside the Gein river that bore the inscription '1741', marking its eighteenth-century construction. Mondrian was drawn to this particular building repeatedly, and the inclusion of the historical date in the title signals his interest in connecting his observation of the present landscape to its historical layers. This was a house with visible duration: it had stood for over 150 years when he painted it in 1900, and its survival through generations of agricultural life gave it a weight beyond its visual appearance.

The building is the composition's undisputed centre, rendered with more attention to architectural detail than many of his farmhouse subjects. The Gein's water in the foreground reflects the house and sky in characteristically still Dutch waterway light. The surrounding vegetation is handled loosely to keep focus on the building and its historical inscription.