Lot 1141 Dα

The painting shows travellers on carts resting in front of an inn. According to the shop sign the inn is named "The Swan". Van Goyen painted a number of variations of this motif. What obviously facsinated him was the representation of travellers that since Jan Brueghel´s time had a long tradition. It is the rendition of an everyday-life scene in a typical plain Dutch landscape. Two peasants sit by the wayside in the foreground, while on the right-hand side a sandy country road goes past the inn. At the horizon one can see a small church. The two horse and carts have halted, the horses are being fed and the travellers receive refreshments. Characteristic for van Goyen is the rendition of the atmosphere of the landscape in which sunlit and shady parts alternate.