Tree Branches and a wooden Fence piled up by a Farm

Just after completing his training with the Haarlem painter of cattle Pieter Frederik van Os (1808-1892) in the summer of 1858, Mauve left for Oosterbeek, near Arnhem, on the river Rhine. Here he would often return to find inspiration. In Oosterbeek, he met fellow-artists like the brothers Willem, Jacob and Matthijs Maris. Besides his usual subject, cattle in a landscape, here he developed a further genre; the interiors of stalls. As Robert-Jan te Rijdt, in the Amsterdam exhibition catalogue of 1997-8, op.cit., p. 270, observes, 'In a sense, Behind the post office in Oosterbeek belongs in this category. Instead of the intimacy of a stall, he has portrayed an atmospherically similar scene out of doors. In opting for this type of landscape detail, Mauve was following the current trend among artists to seek out intimate spots to draw or paint, in the manner of his friend Gerard Bilders. No doubt he also found inspiration in the sous-bois pictures done by the French artists in Barbizon. The works dating from this period that portray a corner of a meadow dominated by pollarded willows, orchards and farm courtyards may be seen as the Dutch variants of those French woodland scenes.... Nor does Mauve's drawing betray any stylistic link with tradition, although the practice of sketching with the brush in sepia enjoyed great popularity around 1850-60 and appears in almost all genres.... For Mauve, who was often despondent, autumn was the most attractive time of the year, and this sombre, bleak and forgotten spot must have evoked a mood which was very close to that of the artist. Mauve's drawing must be dated in or shortly after 1865. On June 21 of that year, a post office was opened in Oosterbeek, at the home of postmaster G. Hilhorst on the Benedendorpseweg.'
Hobbe Smith (1862-1942), once the owner of this drawing, was an artist whom Mauve probably knew