# River and Rural Scene

- By: Richard Earlom (after Meindert Hobbema (Dutch, 1638-1709))
- Date: 1769
- Medium: Mezzotint on paper
- Classification: Print
- Dimensions: Image: 41.5 × 53 cm (16 3/8 × 20 7/8 in.); Plate: 45.5 × 53.2 cm (17 15/16 × 21 in.); Sheet: 46.8 × 54.2 cm (18 7/16 × 21 3/8 in.)
- Culture: England
- Credit line: Gift of Langdon Pearse
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/76103)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/0e167cf2-43b4-a861-1990-65c290031a4f/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

The English printmaker Richard Earlom produced multiple mezzotints of Old Master works, including this scene by the 17th-century Dutch painter Meindert Hobbema. Characteristic of Hobbema’s style is the shaded foreground, with occasional flickers of light that lengthen the shadows of figures and cows and contrast with an area of warm light in the background. Hobbema’s works show a desire to present landscape as an idyllic environment, ordered and regulated by man, an idea that spoke to Earlom, as is clear in many of his own orderly landscapes and market scenes.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0