Anton Mauve

Mauve learned the tricks of the trade from Pieter Frederik van Os in his studio located in the Town Hall of Haarlem. A small sketch of a goat, a set of deer’s antlers and a horseshoe make it clear that Van Os was above all a painter of animals. A young pupil kneels in front of a large, handsome 17th-century fireplace and looks through the portfolio of drawings.

During his training in Van Os’ studio and later with the horse painter Wouter Verschuur, Mauve was mainly engaged in drawing. This gave rise to a trove of drawn memories, to which he could always have recourse.

The Hague School was also called the grey school because many of these painters were partial to muted tones in a natural grey light. Mauve, too, preferred a soft, cool light without strong contrasts instead of dramatic skies or bright sunlight. His palette consists of the shades of colour found in nature.

Mauve occasionally painted the cosmopolitan city of The Hague, as in this watercolour of horsemen in the Haagse Bos on a winter morning. As in the painting Morning Ride along the Beach (header), here too the artist’s training as a painter of animals can be discerned in the accurate treatment of the foreshortened horses.

Apart from chic seaside visitors, Mauve was mainly interested in the hard life of the fishermen who cultivated potatoes in the barren sandy soil of the dunes. This frugality is expressed by the watercolour’s tone: the palette is muted and the light is tempered by the grey clouds.

The Hague School masters were inspired by a group of French painters who worked in the French village of Barbizon. They had a more realistic view of nature than Romantic landscape painters and moreover engaged with the local farmers and villagers. The same applied to Mauve, who built his Hague studio in the nearby dunes.

Mauve called himself a real ‘outdoorsman’ and deplored the urbanization of The Hague. He eventually settled in Laren, a village on the barren moors east of Amsterdam around 1882, where he regularly painted the vegetable and fruit gardens of the small local farms.

The flocks of sheep on the moors became a very popular subject. Demand on the English and American markets became so great that dealers simply asked Mauve – and rather lamely – for depictions of ‘sheep coming’ or ‘sheep going.’

In addition to oil paint, Mauve excelled in watercolour. He succeeded in taking full advantage of the transparent quality of watercolour. As one reviewer wrote, ‘The thoroughly wet atmosphere is captured so well that one’s feet get soaked the longer one looks at it.’

Because of his work and kindliness, Mauve was very popular with young artists. After he settled permanently in Laren in 1885, a veritable artists’ colony developed around the painter. Unfortunately, he died unexpectedly in 1888, only 49 years old. However, Laren continues to be associated with his name to this very day.