Jan Wijnants
, Dutch, c.1635-1684
Title
The Dunes near HaarlemDate1667
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions
21.4 x 26 cm
Signedlower right: J. Wÿnants / 1667
Credit LinePurchased, 1885
Object numberNGI.280
DescriptionA shepherd leads his flock along a path which curves around a dune, while a country girl is seated at her spinning wheel on the roadside with a man sleeping beside her. In the far background the skyline of Wijnants’s town of birth, Haarlem, is visible. The artist painted this picture, however, when he was living in nearby Amsterdam, where he spent the most important years of his artistic career, keeping an inn to supplement his income. Dunes, particularly those near Haarlem, were one of Wijnants’s favourite subjects during his later career. In this regard, he followed a popular tradition established earlier in the century by Pieter Molyn, Philips Wouwerman and Jacob van Ruisdael. Although highly skilled in painting landscapes, Wijnants often asked other painters to add the figures. Some of these can be attributed to Adriaen van de Velde, possibly Wijnants’s pupil, while others, as is the case with The Dunes near Haarlem, can be ascribed to Johannes Lingelbach.
Wijnants’s paintings were particularly popular among eighteenth-century British collectors and influenced many later artists, among them François Boucher and Thomas Gainsborough.
March 2016
ProvenancePurchased, Christie's, 22-23 May 1885, Sir William Knighton, Blendworth Lodge, Hampshire sale, lot 506 Exhibition HistoryCentenary Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, October - December 1964
Dutch Paintings of Golden Age from the Collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, Charles W. Bowers Memorial Museum, Santa Ana, California; Midland Arts Council, Midland, Michigan; Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, Florida; IBM Gallery, New York, 1987
Dutch Art and Scotland: A Reflection of Taste, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 13 August - 18 October 1992
The Young Gainsborough: Rediscovered Landscape Drawings, York Museum Trust UK, 01 October 2021 - 13 February 2022
Label TextOn a path curving around a dune, a shepherd is leading his flock. A country girl is seated at her spinning wheel next to the road, with a man sleeping beside her. In the far background the skyline of Wijnants’s hometown, Haarlem, is visible. The artist painted this picture, however, when he was living in nearby Amsterdam. It is there that Wijnants spent the most important years of his artistic career, while keeping an inn to supplement his income. Dunes, particularly those near Haarlem, were one of Wijnants’s favourite subjects during his later career.