Works by Philips Wouwerman

Philips Wouwerman of Haarlem painted hunting and hawking parties, cavalry battles and travellers in the landscape, and was noted for horses of every breed caught in motion.

Cornelis de Bie says he studied with Frans Hals, but Hals's style left no trace on his work. Except for a brief spell in Hamburg late in the 1630s he seems to have stayed in Haarlem, where he also worked as an estate agent and joined the Guild of St Luke in 1640. He started with plain everyday scenes after Pieter van Laer and the bamboccianti.

In the mid-1640s he often set horses and figures on a slope of land, framed by a tree in front. The Grey Horse, c. 1646, is seen from low down: a boy holds it by the reins beside a broken tree, against a towering cloud. In a Battle Scene of c. 1645/1646, cavalry clash in gunsmoke below a large tree at the right. His younger brothers Jan and Pieter were among his registered pupils, and their pictures seem often to have passed as his.

Sources: Wikidata, Wikipedia, Rijksmuseum, National Gallery of Art.