A Watermill

The watermill set among tall trees was one of Hobbema’s signature subjects, and this panel from about 1664 shows the theme at its finest. Hobbema, the last great landscapist of the Dutch Golden Age and a pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael, built his compositions from broad masses of foliage, still water, and the solid geometry of the mill building. His quiet woodland views were little appreciated in his own lifetime but became among the most sought-after Dutch landscapes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.