A Barn on the Bank of a Stream in Gelderland

In the years this was painted, around 1805 to 1810, the Netherlands was under French control, from 1806 a kingdom ruled by Napoleon's brother Louis. Fashionable landscape painting still looked south, to golden, idealised views in the Italian manner. Van Troostwijk looked at a farm building on a stream in Gelderland, in the east of the country. Linen is spread out on the grass to bleach in the sun, a man walks past carrying a broom, and cattle graze among the trees behind. The Rijksmuseum singles out the bright light and the lush green as what makes this a truly Dutch landscape, and it credits him with renewing Dutch landscape painting by choosing everyday country scenes like this one. The museum bought the canvas in 1875.