Object Image

View of a Path in the Hague Forest, with Beggars at the Door of a Cottage

A narrow road dappled with sunlight winds through a forest, past a cottage where a family is begging for money at the gate. A traveler with a backpack and stick rests in the shade at the path's edge, while in the distance a woman wearing a broad hat carries two buckets on a yoke. The traditional title of the drawing refers to a path in the Haagse Bos, a large forest around The Hague in the Netherlands.

Although Jan Lievens produced this and most of his landscape drawings in the studio, he still managed to capture many minute details: the varied textures of leaves in sunlight, trees with delicate hatching on their trunks, and careful shading on the path to show the sunlight and shadows. Lievens...

c. 1654-1658
Pen and brown ink on asian paper
22.9 x 38.1cm
2001.13

Where you'll find this

The Getty Center
Permanent collection