Wooded Landscape with Travellers and Beggars on a Road

This 1668 Wooded Landscape with Travellers and Beggars on a Road in the Royal Collection introduces a social dimension to Hobbema's woodland scenes. The encounter between travelers and roadside beggars on a woodland road imported a genre element — the social interaction of different classes — into the pastoral setting. The 1668 date makes this one of the last works of his full-time painting career, painted in the year he accepted the wine gauger position. The Royal Collection's exceptional Dutch Golden Age holdings, accumulated through royal patronage and purchase over centuries, include this late major work.

The woodland road provides the compositional spine for the narrative encounter, Hobbema rendering the trees with his usual precision while the small figures introduce human drama to the natural setting.