Oil Painting, 'The Hay Cart: Effect of Dawn or Twilight', Matthijs Maris, 1860

Rural scene with effect of dawn or twilight. A horse is harnessed to a waggon laden with hay. A woman stands talking to a man seated on the waggon and smoking a pipe.

Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides

Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides, 1900
Bought by Constantine Alexander Ionides 7 June 1888, from the art dealers Buck & Reid for £160. Subsequently bequeathed with his collection of paintings, prints and drawings to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1900.
Ref: Basil S. Long, Catalogue of the Constantine Alexander Ionides collection.Vol. 1, Paintings in oil, tempera and water-colour, together with certain of the drawings, London : Printed under the authority of the Board of Education, 1925.
C. Monkhouse, 'The Constantine Ionides Collection' in Magazine of Art, vii, 1884, pp. 36-44, 208-214.

The collection formed by Constantine Ionides includes works of a wide variety of schools, periods and artists. His collection includes Old Masters, 17th century works, contemporary British works and French 19th century works. Constantine formed friendships with artists of the day, especially Legros, who, having spent 17 years in Britain, became a naturalise British citizen. Constantine proved a stable and generous buyer of Legros work, while Legros, in turn, became an advisor in the matters of art to the attentive Constantine. Under the influence of Legros Constantine developed a keen interest in French 19th century paintings purchasing works by Delacroix, Degas, Millet and Rousseau.

Constantine's plans concerning his collection conformed to a more 'public-welfare' vein of thought than his father or brother. He decided to donate his collection to the Victoria & Albert Museum, instead of privately distributing it or disposing of it in a Sales room.

His will states:

'All my pictures both in oil and water colors and crayon or colored chalks (but subject as to my family portraits to the interest herein before given to my said Wife) and all my etchings drawings and engravings to the South Kensington Museum for the benefit of the nation to be kept there as one separate collection to be called "The Constantine Alexander Ionides Collection" and not distributed over the Museum or lent for exhibition. And I desire that the said Etchings Drawings and Engravings shall be framed and glazed by and at the expense of the authorities of the Museum so that Students there can easily see them.'

The collection bequeathed to the museum in 1901 comprises 1138 pictures, drawing and prints, to which a further 20 items were added on the death of his widow in 1920. The works are listed in the V&A catalogue of the Constantine Alexander Ionides collection.

Historical significance: This painting was accepted without question as a work by Maris until Sir Charles Holmes' publication of it (1906-07), in which he inserted a footnote to the effect that 'M. Van Wisselingh's recent investigations have proved that (t)his painting is not by Maris but an enlargement of an existing original from his hand.' M. Van Wisselingh's investigations were never published, but, doubts having been raised, the picture was catalogued as 'by or after Maris' by Long in 1925.

A review of the problem by Dr H. A. Tellegen of the Netherlands Institute for Art History (written communication 1971) has not supported the doubts raised in 1906. The firm of Van Wisselingh confirmed that they sold a small sketch of this composition (10.5 X 18 cm.) to Mrs Groesbeek, Amsterdam in 1929, but this does not in itself cast any doubt on the autograph nature of CAI.90. The existence of a further painting entitled Le Voiturier (28.5 X 38.5 cm.; sold at Boussod, Valadon, The Hague, Nov. 1903) indicates that Maris probably painted this subject several times.

Stylistically, CAI.90 fits well with Maris's early work of the Dutch period and may be compared, for example, with the Painter in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, of c. 1863 (repr. Van Gelder, op. cit., p. 11).

The Hague School was a group of painters active principally from 1870 to 1890 that painted landscapes and genre paintings after nature and who lived at one time or another in The Hague. The leading figures were Bernardus Blommers, Johannes Bosboom, Paul Gabriël, Jozef Israëls, Jacob and Willem Maris, Anton Mauve, Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Albert Neuhuijs, Willem Roelofs, and Jan Hendrik Weisenbruch. This 'school' developed at the same time as the Romantic school of Düsseldorf, Weimar and Munich in Germany and the Pre-Raphaelites in London. These painters produced mostly romanticised landscapes or scenes from daily life of the local people, the Pre-Raphaelites going back to the Middle Ages. The Hague painters were strongly influenced by the French Barbizon School which flourished around 1830 with such painters as Camille Corot (1796-1875), Charles François Daubigny (1817-1878), Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867) and Constant Troyon (1810-1865) who worked en plein air, as well as from the Dutch 17th century paintings. However the work of these artists differs from other realistic movement because of their preference for tonal painting, which earned them the nickname of 'Grey school'. They had a great influence on the development of the Dutch modern art until the end of the 19th century. Jan Toorop (1858-1928), Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) were all influenced by the Hague school in their early works.

Matthijs Maris (1839-1917) was born at The Hague, the brother of Jacobus and Willem Maris. He was a student at the Academies at The Hague and in Antwerp, where he shared rooms with Lawrence Alma Tadema. In 1860 he travelled in Germany and Switzerland and came under the influence of German Romanticism. He lived in Paris 1867-72 and in London from 1877 until his death in 1917. The German painter Georges Laves, whom he met in Antwerp, may have influenced him in exploring subjects nearer to dream visions than actual scenes from life.

Matthijs Maris (1839-1917) was a painter along with his two brothers Jacob, the eldest, and Willem the youngest. In 1851, he became a pupil of Iaac Cornelis Elink Sterk (1808-1871) and attended the Haagse Academie: in 1854 he also worked in the studio of Louis Meijer (1809-1866). He studied at the Antwerp Academy under Nicaise de Keyser (1813-1887) and travelled from 1859 to 1861 in the Netherlands and in Europe (Germany, Switzerland and France), a journey that had a great importance in his artistic development. He moved to Paris in 1869 and to London in 1877, where he remained there until his death. In addition to painting, Maris made etchings in limited editions and lithographs.

Although always mentioned in connection with The Hague School, Matthijs Maris did not really belong to it and created a style of his own with wobbly lines and undistinguished shadows dominated by a grey palette. This painting is a good example of Matthijs' peculiar output which combines aspects of the Hague school nicknamed 'grey school' for its tonal painting and elements of the German Romantic painting which favoured dream visions to mere reality.

CAI.90