A Farmhouse Behind A Fence

A Farmhouse Behind A Fence is a 1904 painting by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian.[1] It was completed early in his career, in 1904, when "the artist abruptly broke from his former life and went into rural seclusion in Brabant, a province in southern Netherlands."[2] He painted numerous canvases on a rural theme: "in his initial public appearances as a professional artist Mondrian was more concerned with supplying a product that would sell than defining his own personal style."[3]

A farmhouse behind a fence
Artist	Piet Mondrian
Year	c. 1904
Medium	oil paint, canvas
Dimensions	20.5 cm (8.1 in) × 29.1 cm (11.5 in)
Collection	Unknown, Kunstmuseum Den Haag
Identifiers	RKDimages ID: 279649

Such paintings were before he developed the now more familiar abstract visual approach of the De Stijl movement. Nevertheless, the painting still shows the beginning of Mondrian's evolution: during this period "he produced paintings of traditional subject matter—Dutch farmhouses and windmills and rivers and forests—but rendered these themes in a very untraditional way ... [he] composed his representations, rather, out of bold abstract planes and broad brushstrokes of saturated colour."[2]

Despite the existence of a signature at the bottom left of the canvas, it was only attributed to Mondrian in 2004, by the art historian Joop Joosten.[4] The painting was added to the collection of the Kunstmuseum, The Hague, Netherlands in 2020.[4] It was acquired from a private collection hanging in Hoorn.[5]