Windmühle mit Sommerhaus II

From about 1902 to 1908 Mondrian kept going back to one stretch of the Gein, a small river southeast of Amsterdam near Abcoude, and to the drainage mill standing beside it. He painted it from different banks, at different hours, in different weather. He had learned that country from his uncle Frits, a painter schooled in the grey Dutch weather of the Hague School, and the two of them worked outdoors along that water together. This one dates from around 1906, when Mondrian was 34 and still six years away from moving to Paris. It is painted on paper rather than canvas, the sort of support you carry out to the riverbank and bring home again. Dr. and Mrs. Sheldon Sommers gave it to the Metropolitan Museum in 1991.