Hendrik Willem Mesdag - Original sketch "On the Land" - Charcoal drawing - Sold

Beautiful charcoal drawing by Mesdag depicting a landscape with women working in the fields near a farm cart with a horse and cart in the background.

This concerns the original sketch "On the land" by Mesdag from sketchbook (SB) 3.


Mesdag was born in Groningen, the son of a starch manufacturer and banker. At an early age he showed an interest in drawing and painting and was taught by JH Egenberger, director of the Minerva Academy. Initially he made a career in the family business, but in 1866 he gave this up and decided to live definitively as a painter, encouraged in this by his wife Sientje, who also had an artistic interest. That summer he left for Oosterbeek, which was then known as the 'Dutch Barbizon'. Later his second cousin Lourens Alma Tadema introduced them to Willem Roelofs in Brussels, who became his teacher there. Seascapes In 1868 he went to the Wadden Island of Norderney, where he discovered the sea. The skies and the atmosphere would become the basis for his artistic existence.

He moved to The Hague and had a house built on the Laan van Meerdervoort, which is now part of the museum De Mesdag Collectie. He often rented a room in the Villa Elba, later Hôtel Rauch, in Scheveningen to be close to the sea. Mesdag played an important role in the cultural life of The Hague and was closely involved in the establishment of the Hollandsche Teekenmaatschappij. Together with Anton Mauve and Willem Maris he was on the board and organised an annual watercolour exhibition.

He was also a member of the painters' society Pulchri Studio, where he was first chairman and then honorary chairman until his death. He and his brother Taco acquired the house on the Lange Voorhout in 1896, to house the Pulchri exhibitions. Pulchri is still located there.

The Panorama Mesdag is his best-known and largest painting. He painted it in 1881 together with his wife Sientje and the younger fellow painters Th. de Bock, GH Breitner and BJ Blommers.

Besides being an important artist, Mesdag was also a prominent collector. In 1903 he donated the Museum HW Mesdag with the entire collection to the State of the Netherlands.