A farm in a wooded landscape

Jan van Goyen was one of the most prolific and influential landscapists of the Dutch Golden Age. His early works confirm the prevailing influence of his master, Esaias van de Velde, with whom van Goyen studied in Haarlem in 1617-18. Beginning around 1626 van Goyen started to develop an independent artistic identity, largely eschewing the earlier influences of van de Velde in favor of a pioneering style of landscape painting that emphasized tonality and the faithful depiction of the local terrain. The present painting is a striking example of van Goyen’s activities in the early 1630s, a period in which he painted mostly dune landscapes conceived in a naturalistic palette comprised largely of greens and earth tones. In these works, van Goyen succeeded in creating a sense of movement and recession into depth through the pronounced diagonal created by the trees and humble structure in the left half of the composition. Atmospheric effects are developed through the low horizon line in which the windswept plain of the Dutch landscape is rendered against a swiftly painted cloud filled sky that dominates much of the composition.

A note on the provenance:

In the third volume of his van Goyen catalogue (loc. cit.), Hans-Ulrich Beck suggested the present painting is probably synonymous with a work of the same subject, date and scale that was formerly with Charles Sedelmeyer and exhibited in Vienna in 1873. It had certainly been acquired by the gold and diamond magnate Alfred Beit by 1904, when Wilhelm von Bode, then the curator of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin and Beit's advisor, published it in his catalogue of the collection at Beit’s London residence at 26 Park Lane in Mayfair. Van Goyen held particular appeal for the collector. The present painting was one of four works by the artist on view at his London accommodations, a number that was rivalled only by Willem van de Velde II among the Dutch and Flemish painters. In 1986, Beit’s descendants made one of the most generous philanthropic gifts in the arts to Ireland by giving many of the most celebrated pictures in the Collection to the National Gallery of Ireland. These included masterpieces by Vermeer, Gabriel Metsu, Jacob van Ruisdael, Goya and Gainsborough, amongst others. The donation transformed the Gallery’s collection of Old Master Paintings and a wing of the Gallery was fittingly named ‘The Beit Wing’ in recognition of this remarkable gift.