Le Moulin à eau

1661

With Ruisdael across the German border

He and Ruisdael may have travelled a short way across the German border, via the Veluwe, Deventer and Ootmarsum; they are known to have travelled together and sketched from nature.

c. 1662

Finds his speciality: woodland landscapes

From about 1662 Ruisdael’s influence grows much stronger, and Hobbema settles into his speciality of wooded landscapes with ponds, roads and a building or two. Some compositions as late as 1664 are near-copies of Ruisdael, and he often repeats his own compositions with variations.

1668

Becomes a wine-gauger for the Amsterdam tax

He takes the well-paid post of wine-gauger for the Amsterdam octroi, assessing and collecting local taxes on wine, and keeps it until the end of his life; presumably the place was found through his wife’s former employer. After this he devotes noticeably less time to painting, but does not give it up altogether, as was long believed.

2 November 1668

Marries Eeltje Vinck

At the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam he marries Eeltje Vinck from Gorcum, who had been in the service of Burgomaster Lambert Reynst; she is four years older than he. The witnesses at the wedding are the bride’s brother Cornelius Vinck and Jacob van Ruisdael.

1672

The “Disaster Year”: the art market collapses

After 1672 the Dutch art market virtually collapses for the rest of the century, and many masters of his generation — Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch, Nicolaes Berchem — produce much less. The same year Burgomaster Lambert Reynst, in whose service Hobbema’s wife had been, loses office and influence.