The Arrival at the Stable

This panel has a partner. The Arrival at the Stable and The Departure from the Stable were painted as a pair, riders coming in to a stable and riders setting out from one, and they have stayed together for more than 250 years. Both belonged to Govert van Slingelandt, a collector in The Hague with a sharp eye for small Dutch pictures. After his death in 1767 his widow prepared the collection for auction, and a sale was announced for May 1768. Before it could scatter the pictures, the 20-year-old Prince William V of Orange bought the entire collection. In the sale catalogue the two stable scenes had been numbers 23 and 24, side by side. They still hang side by side today, in the Gallery Prince Willem V in The Hague, and the Mauritshuis owns them both.