Detail of a Landscape with a Village in the Distance by Van Ruisdael in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2011

Landscape with a Village in the Distance

Artist: Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, Haarlem 1628/29–1682 Amsterdam)

Date: 1646

Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 30 x 43 in. (76.2 x 109.2 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Bequest of Adele L. Lehman, in memory of Arthur Lehman, 1965

Accession Number: 65.181.10

Gallery Label:

This ambitious picture is one of nine known landscape paintings that bear the earliest date found on works by Van Ruisdael, 1646. At the time the artist was about eighteen years old. Youthful exuberance and some losses of paint and glazes combine to make the topography in the foreground somewhat unclear. However, the naturalistic description of foliage and the dramatic presentation of trees forecast the future of Holland's greatest landscape painter.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/437545