A Cottage in the Woods (c. 1662): Art, History and Details

A Cottage in the Woods (c. 1662) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Meindert Hobbema (Dutch, 1638–1709).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Inspired by the native Dutch landscape, Meindert Hobbema specialized in scenes of dense forest growth punctured by winding paths and views toward sunlit clearings that beckon with fertile fields and rustic cottages. Hobbema’s paintings were especially popular among Dutch citizens, who took enormous pride in their land. In addition to nationalistic pride in having recently gained independence from Spain, there was also a profound awareness of the preciousness of land in a low-lying nation, which required dikes, pumps, and constant vigilance to guard against flooding. While the Dutch earned much of their considerable wealth from sea trade, agriculture and livestock were important sources of prosperity.

Object facts

• Title: A Cottage in the Woods
• Date: c. 1662
• Creator attribution: Meindert Hobbema (Dutch, 1638–1709)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 122.5 x 149 x 12 cm (48 1/4 x 58 11/16 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 84 x 111.4 cm (33 1/16 x 43 7/8 in.)
• Collection: P - Netherlandish-Dutch
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.641

A detail from the museum

A windmill, an important symbol of Dutch identity, can be found in the background of this painting.

Collection credit

Bequest of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• John Long Severance Art Collection Photographs: Furniture, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of the Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition : June Twenty-Sixth to October Fourth 1936. [Cleveland, Ohio]: [Cleveland Museum of Art], 1936.
• Broulhiet, Georges. Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709); Paris, France: Firmin-Didot, 1938.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.