Halt of Travellers

An orange-capped traveller leans back and stretches out his legs on the ground, while behind him a kneeling figure – perhaps the proprietor of the dwelling beyond – bends down to feed the white horse from a wooden bucket. A second traveller, in a wide-brimmed hat and wrapped in a brown woollen cloak, looks to dismount. The brushstrokes which drive diagonally down through the skyscape, the jagged bare branches of the trees, and the gushing stream to the right, all create an energetic whirl that contrasts with the two weary figures of the travellers in the painting’s centre. The distant landscape to the left, with its darkening clouds and scarcity of human dwellings, gives the viewer a sense of the harsh realities of seventeenth-century travel: the dependence on horses for transport and of the importance of moments to rest and repair.  

This is an early work by the prolific Dutch painter Philips Wouwerman (1619-68), an artist well-known for scenes of travellers halting to rest in the Dutch countryside. The influence of Wouwerman’s contemporary, the Dutch painter of peasant life Pieter van Laer (1599-1642), can be felt strongly here in the painting’s diagonal composition, the earthy colour palette, and the everyday interactions of people with horses. A prominent white horse, as depicted here, was a regular motif of the artist. The artist’s signature of ‘PHILS W’ (with ‘PHILS’ written in the artist’s signature monogram format) in the lower left-hand corner, helps to date the painting to after the year 1646, at which point Wouwerman began to use this distinctive signature. When analysed under ultraviolet light, A Halt of Travellers, appears almost un-retouched since the time of its creation.