KLAES MOLENAER (Haarlem 1626/1629 – Haarlem 1676)
Figures Outside an Inn by the Town Walls in Summertime
signed K. Molenaer in the lower right
oil on panel
8 ½ x 11 ¾ inches (22 x 30 cm)
In the afternoon of a summer’s day, a number of travelers and horses have stopped to rest by an inn just outside a town’s walls. A medieval gate tower topped by vines provides a strong vertical accent to the midground. To the seventeenth century viewer it would also be a reminder that even the sturdiest of fortifications crumble in the wake of time, or colloquially put “nothing lasts forever”[1]. The dark cloud overhead serves to underline the inevitability of change. Yet the conviviality of the threesome in the right foreground exemplifies the panel’s overriding message – life is to be enjoyed!
Klaes Molenaer was the youngest of seven siblings, he is the brother of the artist Bartholomeus and Jan Miense Molenaer. He specialized in landscapes and genre, which included beach, river and ice-skating scenes as well as peasant gatherings in taverns and villages. His early works show the influence of Jan van Goyen, and he is thought to have apprenticed with his brother Jan Miense, whom he lived with in Amsterdam from 1637 – 1648. He was a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Haarlem from 1651 – 1676. Molenaer excelled at depicting and recording contemporary life, with his most notable pupils being Nicolas Piemont and Thomas Heeremans.[2]
Other summertime scenes by Molenaer made up part of the permanent collections of the museums in Aachen, Braunschweig, Kassel, Leipzig, Philadelphia and Rotterdam.
[1] Walter Liedtke, “Emanuel Murant” in Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, volume I, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, p. 500.
[2] Biographical information taken from E. Benezit, “Klaes Molenaer” in Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, volume 7, Libraire Grund, 1976, p. 462; Homan Potterton, “Klaes Molenaer” in Dutch Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, 1986, pp, 95-96; Gorel Cavalli-Bjorkman, “Nicolaes Molenaer” in Dutch and Flemish Paintings II, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 205, p. 328; and “Klaes Molenaer on rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website.