Waldstück mit Gewässer links

c. 1655

Enters Ruisdael’s workshop

At seventeen he is taken into the workshop of Jacob van Ruisdael, at first to wait on the master and keep the studio in order, but soon he gets the chance to learn the craft; he becomes Ruisdael’s only documented pupil. He seems also to have painted the figures in some of his master’s landscapes.

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.

1704

His wife Eeltje dies

Eeltje dies and is buried in the paupers’ section of the Leiden cemetery in Amsterdam. Hobbema himself will live until 1709 and, like Rembrandt, Hals and Ruisdael, die in relative poverty after their painting has gone out of fashion.

7. Dezember 1709

Died