The Great Beech (Two Farmers with their Dog)
ca. 1652
Medium
Etching; first state of three
Dimensions
image: 7 7/16 x 10 13/16 in. (18.9 x 27.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1926
Accession Number
26.72.10
Art Historical Context
In the heart of the Dutch Golden Age, Jacob van Ruisdael *The Great Beech (Two with their Dog)* around 1652, a masterful etching that captures the serene majesty of the Dutch countryside. Ruisdael, one of the era's premier landscape artists, was renowned for his dramatic skies, rugged trees, and evocative rural scenes, often infusing nature with a sense of divine grandeur. This print depicts a towering beech tree dominating the composition, flanked by two farmers and their loyal dog—a humble nod to everyday agrarian life amid the prosperity of 17th-century Netherlands. As a first-state etchin...
About the Artist
Jacob van Ruisdael · 1623–1682
Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1629–1682) was a Dutch painter and etcher who is widely regarded as the greatest landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age and one of the supreme landscape artists in Western art. Born in Haarlem, he was trained by his father, the frame-maker and painter Isaack van Ruisdael, and by his uncle, the landscape painter Salomon van Ruysdael. He became a member of the Haarlem Guild...