A Bleaching Ground outside Haarlem

Jan van Kessel (Amsterdam 1641 – Amsterdam 1680). Oil painting on canvas, A Bleaching Ground outside Haarlem by Jan van Kessel (Amsterdam 1641 – Amsterdam 1680), signed lower left: Jean van Kassel. A flat landscape with a house to the left and fields with figures and a yellow strips of linen to the right, beneath an expanse of cloudy sky. Kessel was a friend of Hobbema, and possibly - certainly a follower - a pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael, a number of whose views of his native Haarlem show bleaching-grounds; one of the closest to this is the painting in the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. Felbrigg, Norfolk (Accredited Museum)