In many ways, Rembrandt is the central fact of seventeenth-century Dutch art. The sheer range of his subjects, from portraits to religious scenes, animals, peasant life, landscapes, and ancient history and mythology, the quantity of his output, the social and intellectual circles he moved in and was inspired by, his international reputation, and the number and quality of the students he attracted - all these factors made him the key figure in the art of his time. One of the finest of his students was Abraham Furnerius, who was the brother-in-law of Philips Koninck, another Rembrandt pupil and landscapist. Furnerius, who died at age 26, seems not to have made any paintings or even any drawings aside from landscapes. This sheet was taken from an album of 82 leaves, which was broken up in 1943; the British Museum acquired 65 leaves, with 252 drawings. The style is typical of Furnerius, with its long thin tree trunks with no branches at the bottom and then a mushroom-like burst of foliage spreading out; a drawing in the Museum Boymans - van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. R95), is especially close to this work. This side view of the farm compound, with a line of trees on the left, is an interesting variation of this subject; the drawing seems to have been cut slightly at the top and bottom, making the foreground fence harder to read. This fence is reminiscent of similar devices used by Rembrandt, for example, in his so-called winter landscape in the Fogg Museum, Cambridge (inv. no. 1932.368), and the etching of a cottage with a white paling, dated 1648 (Bartsch 232), soon after Furnerius would have studied with the master. Back to Gallery