Petrus van der Velden

Netherlands / Aotearoa New Zealand / Australia, b.1837, d.1913

House on the Heath

  • c. 1887
  • Oil on canvas on board
  • Purchased, 1968
  • 468 x 596mm
  • 69/168

With its brightly coloured palette and loose brushwork, House on the Heath differs dramatically from the more sombre-toned paintings for which van der Velden is best-known. Although he was a traditional painter who completed his oil paintings in the studio from preparatory sketches and scaled-up tracing drawings, in House on the Heath he appears to have painted the subject en plein air directly from nature. The landscape shown in this painting is thought to be in the Gooi region near Laren in the Netherlands. Located east of Amsterdam, the area attracted many painters, including van der Velden and his contemporaries, in the mid to late nineteenth century due to its natural beauty.

(New Dawn Fades, November 2018)

Exhibition History

earlier labels about this work
  • Using a brightly coloured palette and loose brushwork, this work by Petrus van der Velden differs dramatically to the more sombre-toned paintings for which he is known. Van der Velden was a traditional studio painter, completing his oil paintings in the studio from preparatory sketches, but in this work he appears to have painted the subject directly from nature.

    The landscape shown in this painting is thought to be in the Gooi region near Laren in the Netherlands. Located east of Amsterdam, the region attracted many painters in the late 19th century due to it’s natural beauty.

    Born in Rotterdam, Van der Velden gave up his business as a lithographer and registered in 1868 at the Rotterdam Academy of Art, and a year later at the Academy, Berlin. In 1890 he emigrated to Christchurch, New Zealand, with his family. They lived in Sydney from 1898 to 1904, before returning to New Zealand.

    (Label date unknown)