MEINDERT HOBBEMA SECT. This picture and the pendant were offered for sale by the Amsterdam dealer Roos about the year 1833. Sm. then agreed with others that they were by an imitator of Hobbema ; but " lining and judicious cleaning have since so greatly improved them," he wrote in 1 842, " that he feels no hesitation in now recording them among the works of the master." Sales. Amsterdam July 5, 1833 (J. Nieuwenhuys). Heris (Eire), Paris, March 25, 1841, No. 2 (16,800 francs, W. Hope) ; see Ch. Blanc, ii. 440. According to this sale-catalogue, the pictures were sent, with others, from the Prince of Orange's Chateau of Loo to Amsterdam in 1713 and sold (for 1 150 florins) ; but Hoet (i. 149) does not mention them. They were bought by an ancestor of Lord Courtcnay, in whose family they remained till 1816, when they were put up for sale at the Chateau of Portland. This is Sm.'s version. But the Heris sale-catalogue says that the pictures were painted for ancestors of Jonkheer Alberda and were in his collection, but had been in the possession of the Groningen dealer Gockinga since 1834. W. W. Hope, London, June 15, 1849 (3^7 : los - bought in) according to a MS. note by Sm. in his own copy of his catalogue. 10 1. The Entrance to a Wood and a Water-Mill. Here and there are figures. Birds are flying. The trees in the wood are strongly lighted. The foreground trees are very large and include a shattered oak. In the distance are hills and water. A bright sky with a few clouds. Signed, and dated 1665 ; canvas, 62 inches by 73 inches. Sale. L. Casterman and others, Antwerp, July 19, 1858, No. 72. 1 02. Landscape with a Water- Mill. On the left great trees shade a road on which a man and a boy are walking. In the right centre is a water-mill. On the right bank in front is a great tree which has been uprooted and has partly fallen into a still pool. Signed in full in the left centre ; canvas, 28 inches by 33 inches. Sale. Baron de S , Paris, May 3, 1869, No. 38. 103. Landscape with a Water-Mill. The mill is on the right. To the left is a clump of trees. In the middle distance is a sunlit village. In the collection of the Earl of Dunmore, 1857 (Waagen, Suppl. 445). Sale. Earl of Dunmore, London, 1870 (650). 104. The Water-Mill. Sm. 83, and Suppl. 17. To the left, on the farther bank of a pool, stands an undershot water-mill with adjacent buildings. Water rushes under the wheel and through three shoots below the mill. On the right are clumps of trees, beyond which is a meadow with timber lying in it. In the distance are fields with hedges. In the right foreground a woman, wearing a dark jacket and a red skirt, stands on a path, conversing with a man and a boy. At the end of the wood are two other figures. To the left a man with a pole is near the corner of a cottage ; an angler is on the bank of the pool. The scene corresponds exactly to that of 90 (Dutuit), except that here a solitary tall tree stands in the right centre which is not shown in that picture. [Pendant to 68.] Panel, 30 inches by 44 inches.
