On the Beach
Alfred Verwee (1838 - 1895), 1869
oil on canvas, 93 cm x 68 cm
Credits: The Mesdag Collection, The Hague
Verwee painted this work on commission for Mesdag and it was delivered to him in The Hague in 1869. Mesdag became acquainted with the Belgian painter in Brussels. He admired his colleague’s realistic paintings of animals.
This time, however, Mesdag was not satisfied. He voiced harsh criticism of the painting in a letter to his friend: ‘The white horse has great qualities, but it seems to me that the head and neck are too big in proportion to its hindquarters: the man in the blue smock is not well drawn, nor is one of the horses in the background.’
In his turn Verwee did not hesitate to find fault with Mesdag’s work. Perhaps both artists benefitted from this candid correspondence.
- Object number
- hwm0326
- Dimensions
- 93 cm x 68 cm, 124.5 cm x 99 cm, 12.5 cm
- Provenance
- Sold by the artist, Brussels, to Hendrik Willem Mesdag, The Hague, November 1869; Collection Museum Mesdag donated by Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Sientje Mesdag-van Houten to the State of the Netherlands, 14 May 1903; Rijksmuseum H.W. Mesdag, The Hague, from 1 August 1903; in trust of the Mauritshuis, The Hague, between 1934 and 1990; in trust of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, from 1 April 1990; Museum Mesdag, in trust of the Van Gogh Museum Foundation, Amsterdam, from 1 July 1994, under the name of De Mesdag Collectie from 2011.
- artist
- Alfred Verwee
- Credits
- The Mesdag Collection, The Hague
Dijk, Maite van, Suijver, Renske, Fitski, M., Smits, C., De Mesdag Collectie, Amsterdam, 2011, p. 13, 23, 19
Dijk, Maite van, Suijver, Renske, Fitski, M., Smits, C., The Mesdag Collection, Amsterdam, 2011, p. 13, 23, 118-119
Bodt, Saskia de, Leeman, Fred, Leeuw, Ronald de, Pennock, Hanna, Museum Mesdag : catalogue of paintings and drawings, Zwolle, 1996, p. 421-422