Dutch windmill, Jacob Maris Tea Towel

Kitchen Towel 16" x 24" wih the painting " The windmill" by the famous Dutch master artist Jacob Maris. Artist: Jacob Maris, ca. 1880 - ca. 1886 Title Dutch: De molen Medium: oilpaint on canvas, h 60cm × w 50cm. Date:ca. 1880 - ca. 1886 Painting: A typical Dutch windmill behind some houses and trees and near a waterway. On the left a man near a Dutch ship. Windmill: The reason for the name "windmill" is that the devices originally were developed for milling grain for food production. The evidence at present is that the earliest type of European windmill was the post mill, so named because of the large upright post on which the mill's main structure (the "body" or "buck") is balanced. By mounting the body this way, the mill is able to rotate to face the wind direction; an essential requirement for windmills to operate economically in north-western Europe, where wind directions are variable. The body contains all the milling machinery. The first post mills were of the sunken type, where the post was buried in an earth mound to support it. Later, a wooden support was developed called the trestle. This was often covered over or surrounded by a roundhouse to protect the trestle from the weather and to provide storage space. This type of windmill was the most common in Europe until the nineteenth century, when more powerful tower and smock mills replaced them. The windmill on the painting of Jacob Maris is a so called smock mill. The smock mill is a later development of the tower mill, where the tower is replaced by a wooden framework, called the "smock." The smock is commonly of octagonal plan, though examples with more, or fewer, sides exist. The smock is thatched, boarded or covered by other materials, such as slate, sheet metal, or tar paper. The lighter construction in comparison to tower mills make smock mills practical as drainage mills as these often had to be built in areas with unstable subsoil. Having originated as a drainage mill, smock mills are also used for a variety of purposes. When used in a built-up area it is often placed on a masonry base to raise it above the surrounding buildings. Jacob Maris Jacob Maris (August 25, 1837, The Hague - August 7, 1899, Karlsbad) was a Dutch painter, who with his brothers Willem and Matthijs belonged to what has come to be known as the Hague School of painters. When Jacob Maris was twelve he took some art lessons and later enrolled in the Hague Academy of Art. He then worked in the studio of Hubertus van Hove. There he painted interiors as well as figurative and genre works. Van Hove moved to Antwerp and the nineteen-year-old Maris went with him. In 1857, Jacob Maris returned to the Hague. After Jacob and his brother had earned enough money by copying eight royal portraits, they were able to go to Oosterbeek. They also went on a study trip together to Germany, Switzerland and France. He lived in Paris from 1865 till 1871, and then returned to the Netherlands when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. In The Hague, he became a strong landscape painter painting rivers and landscapes with mills and towpaths, and beach views with fishing boats. His stroke became broader and larger and his use of colour became more subdued and directed towards portraying the atmospheric depiction of clouds. In 1871, Maris became a member of the Pulchri Studio and would fill various administrative positions there. It was only after 1876 that he experienced any renown in the Netherlands and from 1885 on he was a celebrated painter. When he was in his sixties, Maris began to suffer from asthma and corpulence. At the advice of his doctors he went to take the waters at Karlsbad, where he suddenly died on 7 August 1899. He was buried in The Hague. Source: Wikipedia