Pond in the Woods at Sunset

Bilders painted this small panel, only 22 by 35 centimetres, near Lochem in the east of Gelderland, around 1862. He was fascinated by the colours of nature and tried to match them as closely as he could, and here he gives himself one narrow task, the last light of the day. The sun is already low behind the trees, so their trunks and twisting branches stand out almost black against a glowing sky. The same glow lies again in the pond at their feet, broken by the reflections of the trunks. A dark farmhouse roof sits low on the skyline. At the water's edge a few ducks settle for the evening, one of them bright white, and he signed his name in full in the dark grass at the lower left.