Hendrick Meyer (Amsterdam 1737-1793 London)

Having trained from an early age at the Amsterdam Drawing Academy, Meyer moved to Haarlem in 1769, where he joined the painters' guild and founded a tapestry workshop. He visited London in 1775 with the Dutch painter Wybrand Hendricks (1744-1831) and returned to settle there in 1788, exhibiting from 1790 at the Royal Academy. The present meticulous drawings were executed in 1780, during the intervening years which he spent in Leiden. Each represents an idyllic pastoral landscape, ripe with agricultural activity and depicting respectively the beginning and end of a working day. The remarkably fresh pigments showcase Meyer's ability to utilise light for theatrical effect. Delicate touches of white bodycolour are juxtoposed with long shadows in the scene set at sunrise, while the second glows with the subtle red hues of the setting sun.