Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch artwork • painting • for sale Farm on the canal

In the 70s of the 19th century, work by the painters of the Hague School was not yet sold on a large scale in our country. It was different abroad, where the demand for their work was almost immediately high, especially in England and Scotland. Especially large industrialists who made their fortune in the steel industry and with the construction of railways, liked to expand their existing collections of paintings from the Barbizon School with work by these Dutch newcomers. The direct depiction of nature without beautification was what attracted them to the work of these painters. One of the most important English collectors of the Hague School was the railway magnate James Staats Forbes (1823-1904). Forbes worked as an engineer for the Great Western Railway Company. When one of the subsidiaries, the Hollandsche Rijnspoorweg, was on the verge of bankruptcy, Forbes and a number of others had to reorganize the company. He settled in The Hague, where he became good friends with Josef Israëls and lived for eighteen years. There he began to buy his first modern works, among others from Van Wisselingh & Co.. After his return to England, Forbes made most of his purchases in the 80s and 90s through art dealers such as Goupil and The Dutch Gallery. At the time of his death, Forbes' collection included in addition to work by the Barbizon School around 1000 works by Israëls, Mauve, the Maris brothers, Weissenbruch, Roelofs, Gabriel and other modern Dutch artists.