  About the Artwork
  
  
  In September 1871, Charles Francois Daubigny visited Holland, where he made oil sketches from a hired boat on the Meuse River near Dordrecht, resulting in a series of views, including this painting. To capture the expansive panorama of a riverbank punctuated by towering windmills and moored sailboats, Daubigny used his signature format of a double-square canvas. The low point of view from the boat allowed him to attend to glimmering relflections of the boats and buildings in the water, observed in the damp afternoon light on the brink of twilight.

Daubigny routinely painted outdoors. The artist's propensity for looser brushwork and surfaces built from broad, thick layers of paint, as evidenced here in the folds of the creamy white sail, provoked the art establishment's rebuke of his sketch-like technique and accusations that he painted mere "impressions." This new approach to landscape painting earned Daubigny the admiration of a younger generation of artists, including Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet.
  
  
  Title
  Mills at Dordrecht
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1872
  
  Artist
  Charles François Daubigny
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1817-1878
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  French
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 33 1/4 × 57 1/2 inches (84.5 × 146.1 cm)
  Framed: 45 5/8 × 69 5/8 × 5 1/4 inches (115.9 × 176.8 × 13.3 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Modern Art to 1970
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Mr. and Mrs. E. Raymond Field
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  32.85
  
  
  Copyright
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