Hilly Landscape with a High Road

Adriaen van de Velde was celebrated among his contemporaries for an unusual dual mastery — both landscape painting and figure painting. His landscapes were so prized that other artists, including Meindert Hobbema and Jan van der Heyden, frequently employed him to staff their own compositions with figures.

Van de Velde died young, at just thirty-five, in 1672 — the Rampjaar, or “Disaster Year,” when the Dutch Republic was invaded by France, England, and two German bishoprics. Despite his short career, he left a significant body of work that defined the Dutch classical landscape. This panel, in the Rijksmuseum’s permanent collection, exemplifies his measured approach to the Dutch countryside.