Cottages in a Forest

This 1665 Cottages in a Forest at the Mauritshuis depicts the modest rural dwellings that Hobbema placed within his woodland landscapes as evidence of human habitation within nature. The Mauritshuis in The Hague, home to Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson, preserves multiple examples of Hobbema's woodland cottage subjects alongside the masterpieces of his generation. His modest cottages — thatched, weathered, their gardens slightly disordered — represent the unselfconscious building tradition of rural Holland, homes made from local materials for local needs, integrated into the landscape without pretension.

The thatched cottages are rendered with careful attention to their construction materials and weathered surfaces, integrated into a forest setting where Hobbema's detailed rendering of trees creates a sheltering natural canopy.