Van der Heyden, Jan (1637-1712)
The Huis ten Bosch at The Hague and Its Formal Garden (View from the South)
c.1668–1670
Oil on wood, 39.1 x 55.2 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Both an artist and an inventor (among other urban improvements, he conceived the fire pump), Van der Heyden specialized in precise and luminous cityscapes and views of country houses. These two jewel-like paintings depict Huis ten Bosch (House in the Woods), the country home of the widowed Princess of Orange and still a residence of the Dutch royal family today. Van der Heyden shows the house amid its formal garden of hedgerows, pavilions, and obelisks, peopled by laboring gardeners and strolling aristocrats. French-style gardens like this one expressed an ideal of nature brought entirely under human control, ordered and harmonious. (MET)
Compare:
Van der Heyden, Jan (1637-1712)
The Huis ten Bosch from the East
c.1668–1670
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
See also:
• The Hague (Netherlands)