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The 6 Most Famous Egbert van Drielst Paintings, a Gallery Selection
Updated November 2026 · ranked by our popularity score (searches, visits and orders for each work) · 6 works by Egbert van Drielst in our catalogue
In short
Of all the originals Egbert van Drielst left, the most famous is Country Road with Trees (1789), in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam. Close behind it come Farmhouse Among Trees (1789) and - (1807). Our catalog holds 6 works by Egbert van Drielst; the gallery has kept the 6 the world admires most, each shown with its date, its museum and its story.
1746 – 1818, Groningen
Most works: Amsterdam Museum
Egbert van Drielst's top 10 paintings: the gallery's choice
The museums that keep Egbert van Drielst's originals
The 5 museums that hold the most of the paintings on this page.
| Museum | City | Works by Egbert van Drielst | Paintings from this list |
|---|---|---|---|
 Amsterdam Museum |
Amsterdam | 2 | Country Road with Trees, Farmhouse Among Trees |
 Museum Voor Moderne Kunst |
Arnhem | 1 | - |
 Groninger Museum |
Groningen | 1 | Drenthe Winter Landscape |
 Rijksmuseum |
Amsterdam | 1 | Farms on the Fringe of a Wood |
 Nivaagaards Malerisamling |
Nibe | 1 | Landscape with Watermill |
Egbert van Drielst decade by decade: the original that defines each
Works per decade
Pick a decade to see the original that defines it.
Collectors' questions about Egbert van Drielst's paintings
Which work is Egbert van Drielst most famous for?Reveal the answer
Country Road with Trees (1789), Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam. Farmhouse Among Trees (1789) and - (1807) come next.
What age was Egbert van Drielst when Country Road with Trees was made?Reveal the answer
43 years old: Country Road with Trees dates from 1789, and Egbert van Drielst was born in 1746.
How many paintings did Egbert van Drielst leave?Reveal the answer
Our catalog holds 6 works by Egbert van Drielst, dated from 1789 to 1814.
In which museums do Egbert van Drielst's masterpieces hang?Reveal the answer
Mostly in Amsterdam Museum (Amsterdam), Museum Voor Moderne Kunst (Arnhem) and Groninger Museum (Groningen). The museum table above lists them all.
In which years did Egbert van Drielst paint the most famous works?Reveal the answer
In 1780s: 2 of the 6 works on this page were made then, Country Road with Trees among them.
What are the first and the last famous originals of Egbert van Drielst?Reveal the answer
On this page, the earliest is Country Road with Trees (1789) and the latest Drenthe Winter Landscape (1814).
Which Egbert van Drielst works hang at the Amsterdam Museum?Reveal the answer
Country Road with Trees and Farmhouse Among Trees: the Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam holds 2 of the works on this page.
Egbert van Drielst: life and work
The Drenthe Hobbema
To understand Egbert van Drielst, one must look past the decorative surface of his wallpaper designs and focus on his precise imitation of the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape tradition. He was not an innovator of form, but a skilled technician of memory. Working primarily between 1760 and 1818, he reconstructed the atmosphere of a bygone era by studying the works of Meindert Hobbema and Jacob van Ruisdael. His reputation rests on this ability to replicate the textures of the Dutch wilderness, specifically the uncultivated stretches of Drenthe.
His training was far from academic in the traditional sense. He began his career in a Groningen factory producing lacquered objects before moving to Haarlem to apprentice in Jan Augustini’s wallpaper factory. This early exposure to ornamental painting shaped his approach to large-scale compositions. In Amsterdam, he refined these skills under Hendrick Meijer and eventually joined the Guild of Saint Luke in 1768. His work often featured a horizon set at eye level, a practical necessity for the large-scale wall hangings that decorated the canal houses of the Dutch bourgeoisie.
Technique and Subject Matter
Van Drielst’s output was diverse, ranging from watercolor over black chalk to oil on canvas. While he is frequently categorized as an ornamental painter due to his wallpaper commissions, his true strength lay in detailed pastoral drawings. He frequently traveled to the northeast of the Netherlands, capturing the dense forests and peat lands of Drenthe. These trips provided the raw material for his most noted landscapes.
The compositions often rely on specific, grounded elements:
- Small dirt roads and ramshackle houses that anchor the viewer in a rural reality.
- Watermills and ponds that introduce human presence into the wilder scenery.
- Staffage, such as travelers on sandy paths or fishermen in boats, which provides scale to his wooded settings.
His method involved using motifs from earlier drawings to build much larger, more complex oil paintings. This allowed him to maintain a high level of detail even when working on massive canvases intended for manor houses. He did not seek to invent new landscapes; he sought to perfect the depiction of existing ones through the lens of the old masters.
A Legacy in Paper and Oil
The survival of Van Drielst’s work is a matter of historical luck. Much of his wallpaper production perished as interior fashions shifted away from large-scale landscape hangings. What remains, however, provides a clear record of his technical competence. His ability to blend the ruggedness of the Drenthe landscape with the refined requirements of decorative art earned him the nickname "the Hobbema of Drenthe."
His presence in major collections, such as the National Gallery of Art and the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, confirms his standing within the Dutch tradition. He remained a fixture of the Amsterdam art scene until his death in 1818. His work remains a significant study in how an artist can utilize the techniques of the past to satisfy the aesthetic demands of a contemporary market.