Follower of B.C. Koekkoek (Dutch,1803-1862)

Landscape with Farmhouse and Sheep

Oil on canvas, signed lower left.

Painting Size: 11” x 14”
Frame Size: 16.5 ” x 19.5”

Koekkoek was a student of his father the artist Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek and of Schelfhout Van Os at the Academy of Amsterdam. He married the daughter of the painter J.A. Daiwaille. In 1845 the Dutch king commissioned numerous paintings from Koekkoek. He travelled around Belgium and frequently visited the environs of the Rhine and the Moselle. In 1841 he founded an academy of drawing in Clèves where artists such as Frederick Kruseman, Lodewijk Kliejn and Johann Bernard Klombeck came under his tutelage and gave rise to the school of landscape painting referred to as 'Cleves Romanticism'. He took part in Paris exhibitions and won medals in 1840 and 1845. He was a member of the Academies of Petersburg and of Rotterdam. His paintings reveal his careful study of Dutch 17th century painters and the romantic tradition of the Dutch masters.

Perhaps the artist of this painting studied at the Clèves academy as evidenced by his adherence to Koekkooek’s admonition to observe qualities of light and following Koekkoek’s example of painting rural environments with tiny figures.

Sources:
Benezit, E. "Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs"
Thieme-Becker, ed. "Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler vonder Antike bis zu Gegenwart"
Sheen, ed. "Lexicon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 1750-1950"