A view on the church of Vries, Drenthe

The present and the following lot, can been seen as early works by the celebrated Marine painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag. These works belong to his Brussels period, where he had moved in the autumn of 1866 at the age of 35. During that period he received his first art-lessons from Willem Roelofs and his cousin Lourens Alma Tadema. By way of practice he started making various detailed studies of his house and garden, of which the following lot is a fine example. The present lot is a rare subject in Mesdag's oeuvre. At this stage of his artistic career he was still searching for his own style, which he found in 1868. During that summer Mesdag and his wife Sientje visited the German island of Norderney where he became fascinated and inspired by the sea.

Recorded in the archives of the Stichting Mesdag Documentatie, Wassenaar, Poort no.1868.23.