A Pond in the Forest

This exceptionally well-preserved painting depicts the heavily wooded landscape of the eastern Netherlands, Meindert Hobbema's primary source of inspiration. It shows a pond in a forest, amid striking passages of sunlight and shadow, with an evocative, cloudy sky as evidence of the country's swiftly changing weather.

In the background is a strongly sunlit meadow, in which several small figures wander; closer to the pond, others congregate. The only trace of human intervention in the landscape is the rush of water that bubbles into the pond from a wooden channel. This is likely part of a sluice that would have formed part of the waterways serving the country's water mills-a subtle hint of the incipient industry that was one of many factors leading Holland to become a world power in the seventeenth century.

This calm, peaceful view was made the same year that Hobbema was appointed as a wine-gauger for Amsterdam, a securely paid and socially prominent position that involved measuring the amount of wine in vintners' casks for taxation. He also married in 1668, and it was after this point that his artistic output markedly decreased.

The painting was purchased from Knoedler's in New York in 1916 by Mrs. Prentiss, the museum's primary benefactor.