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Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers by Unknown
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buried. This great name of Hobbema had fallen into such discredit that
when one of his pictures fell by chance into the hands of an amateur or
merchant the signature would be effaced as quickly as possible and
replaced by that of J. Ruysdael, the sole painter worthy of entering
into competition with him.

Who then is this Meindert Hobbema? Where was he born? Where did he live?
What was his life? Alas, we know very little concerning this impeccable
master, one of the greatest glories of Dutch painting. The principal
historians of the Netherland school are ignorant of him or pass him by
in silence. Houbraken, Descamps, and d'Argenville are dumb regarding
him. Those who, by chance, treat of him, commit so many errors that it
is best to take no account of their words. Three cities, Amsterdam,
Koeverden, and a village, Middelharnais, in the province of Guelder,
which he has made famous by the marvellous picture, the subject of our
notice, dispute the honour of being his birthplace. But, it seems,
although nothing can be affirmed with certainty, that he first saw the
light in Amsterdam in 1638. He was the son of a sergeant in the
Netherland army and spent his early life in Koeverden, where he was
baptized and where his father was in garrison. At a later period he
established himself in Amsterdam, where he became the pupil and soon the
comrade and friend of J. Ruysdael, who served as witness to his marriage
with Eeltie Vinck, celebrated in this same city, Oct. 2, 1668. From that
time he scarcely ever left Amsterdam, where he died, Dec. 14, 1709, five
years after his wife, in the sad Roosegraft, which had seen Rembrandt
expire thirty years before. He was sixty-seven years of age. Have we any
need to add that, like Rembrandt, the painter of painters, he died
poor?

That is all we know of Meindert Hobbema. It is little enough, but quite
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