Jan Siberechts, 1627–ca. 1703, Flemish, active in Britain (from 1672)
Title:
Wollaton Hall and Park, Nottinghamshire
Date:
1697
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
75 1/2 × 54 1/2 inches (191.8 × 138.4 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1973.1.52
Gallery Label:
Grand country houses were key centers of power, the administrative and symbolic heart of a great family, a place to entertain and host visitors, and expressions of the owner’s taste and virtue. Wollaton Hall, designed by the Elizabethan architect Robert Smythson, was built between 1580 and 1588. A century on, Sir Thomas Willoughby commissioned this view of the house, placing it at the center of a vast estate—particularly significant in this coal-rich area—and highlighting the new, fashionable formal gardens. The Flemish painter Jan Siberechts presents the country house as a world in microcosm, with its owners at leisure and its servants at work. Members of the household play on the bowling green, stroll in the gardens, and even meet clandestinely among the trees. Elsewhere, gardeners roll paths and dig in the vegetable patches. Behind the house, linens are spread out on the hedgerows to be bleached by the sun.\n\n Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016