Landschap met een wandelaar met hond c. 1825 - 1829

Andreas Schelfhout created this landscape with a walker and dog in the Netherlands, sometime in the first half of the 19th century. It’s a humble pencil drawing, but even in its modest way, it connects to the larger culture of its time. The Dutch Golden Age of painting was long past. The Netherlands had been through a period of economic decline and foreign occupation. After 1815, the Dutch were re-building their sense of national identity. This drawing hints at the renewed interest in the local landscape. This wasn't the dramatic, idealized landscape of earlier eras, but a more intimate and personal view of nature. Schelfhout was a popular artist, and an instructor to many others. His landscapes found a ready market among the rising middle class. To understand such an image better, we can look into the art market of the period, the popular taste for landscape, and the broader cultural currents of the time. Art is always embedded in its social and institutional context.