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Landscape with a Windmill

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Compare the dark mill and trees at right with the bright plain at left, and look there for the strips of white linen laid out in the sun to bleach.

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Ruisdael painted this windmill in 1646, when he was still a teenager, and signed it with his monogram and the date. Even this early he could make a plain motif look grand, massing the mill and trees in dark shapes against a sunlit plain. When the painting was sold in London in 1966, it was catalogued only as the work of a follower.

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oil on wood · Framed: 69 x 88.5 x 4 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Dutch Golden Age

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Details and source

Museum title
Landscape with a Windmill
Artist
Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, 1628/29–1682)
Date
1646
Medium
oil on wood
Dimensions
Framed: 69 x 88.5 x 4 cm (27 3/16 x 34 13/16 x 1 9/16 in.); Unframed: 49.5 x 68.5 cm (19 1/2 x 26 15/16 in.)
Credit line
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
Image license
CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record
Cleveland Museum of Art

Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.

Landscape with a Windmill · Jacob van Ruisdael, 1646
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Landscape with a Windmill, Jacob van Ruisdael

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