400 MEINDERT HOBBEMA SECT. Panel, 24 inches by 33 inches. Sale.C. T. Yerkes, New York, April 5, 1910, No. 128 No. 48 of the edition de luxe of the catalogue. 135. A WOOD WITH SCATTERED TREES AND CATTLE. Between the trees is a road, with cottages. In the right foreground is a pool. A cow, a goat, a man, and a woman on the bank, near the water. The dark foreground contrasts strongly with the sunlit middle distance. The composition recalls that of 89 (Louvre). The light- blue sky is especially fine. Tall and narrow. In the collection of the Earl of Wemyss, Gosford House ; it was there in 1857 (Waagen, Suppl. 440). 136. A WOODED LANDSCAPE WITH TWO COWS. Sm. i. To the right is a long sandy road on the top of a dyke, bordered on the right by a hedge of thorns, elders, and other shrubs in blossom, and on the left, in the centre of the middle distance, by a thick clump of tall trees. The dyke slopes down in the left foreground to low-lying land which fills the left side. In front, to the left, is a pool, with flags and other water-plants. Beyond it is a clump of pollard willows, beside which a path runs nearly parallel with the dyke to a cottage amid trees in the middle distance. The view extends over meadows with hedges and trees to sandhills in the left distance. A fine summer afternoon, light clouds in a blue sky. The figures accord very well with the landscape and are probably by Hobbema himself. The two cows, three sheep, a dog, and three figures in the foreground are, however, out of tone ; they cast unduly strong shadows and are too vividly lighted. Possibly they are somewhat later than the landscape, but in any case they were painted in during the seventeenth century. The cows are very well rendered, in the style of A. van de Velde, perhaps by Dirck van Bergen. Sm. ascribed the cows to A. van de Velde himself, and his opinion was endorsed by the Burlington Club catalogue and by Bode. (See introduction below to A. van de Velde section.) Sm. commends the "superlative beauty and excellence of this chef d'ceuvre" [Pendant to 171. Compare 180.] Signed in full, and dated 1663 ; canvas, 42^ inches by 50^ inches. Exhibited at the British Institution, London ; at Manchester, 1857, No. 722 ; and at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1900, No. n. In the collection of Edward John Littleton, afterwards Lord Hatherton, London, 1835 (Sm.) ; he is reported by Sm. to have refused .3000 for the picture, which was said to have been painted for an ancestor of his ; but he afterwards sold it to Lord Dudley (for about 3150). Sale. Earl of Dudley, London, June 25, 1892, No. 7 (10,080, Agnew). In the collection of Alfred Beit, London ; Bode's 1904 catalogue. In the collection of Otto Beit, London. 137. LANDSCAPE WITH A ROAD AND COTTAGES; A MAN WITH A COW. Sm. 103. In the right centre is a clump of tall trees, beyond which the ground rises to a hill with a dense wood. On the right a high road leads into the distance. Near the front is a large
