the seventeenth-century masters: Hobbema, Cuyp, Ruisdael and Wynants. The golden light and the inclusion of travellers in his work suggests Koekkoek also admired the Dutch Italianate painters of the seventeenth century, collectively known as the Bamboccianti, especially Pieter van Laer and Jan Both. Koekkoek imagined his pictures as the result of an ideal combination of observation and artifice. He studied art and nature with equal acuity, creating beautiful landscape paintings that celebrated the greatness of Creation. ‘Koekkoek's work impresses the spectator by its power, by the firm and correct construction of the trees, by the broad, natural growth of the leaves and boughs, [and] by the careful and elaborate reproduction of the wooded landscape’ (G. H. Marius, Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century, Woodbridge, 1973, p. 89). Up to this day, Koekkoek's work is very much favoured for the lively composition and the mood of nostalgia, in which the Dutch Golden Age seems to linger on. Just as he was during his own lifetime, Koekkoek is widely regarded as the most accomplished landscape painter of Dutch romanticism, against whose scrupulously refined paintings the work his contemporaries is measured. Haus Koekkoek, Cleves Koekkoek's financial success allowed him to purchase a plot of land in downtown Cleves in 1842 and build a grand villa in italianate style over the next seven years. After his death in 1862, the house was sold and the majority of its furnishings were auctioned off in Amsterdam. In 1902 the German doctor Hans van Ackeren purchased and expanded the property, added an extension to the house and remodeled its interior in Art Nouveau style. Fortunately the house remained essentially undamaged in WW II; it was subsequently used as city-hall for several years during which time it hosted art annual exhibits by the Kleve Artist's Association. From 1960 it became the municipal museum and in 1997 it was returned to its state as an artist's residence. Works Notes References External links official website of the Museum B.C. Koekkoek-Haus, Kleve, in English language. short film with many images of Koekkoek's landscape-paintings artworks in the Boijmans van Beuningen Works by Koekkoek in the Dordrechts Museum biography notes and dates of B.C. Koekkoek, in the Dutch R.K.D. Archive, The Hague 1803 births 1862 deaths People from Middelburg, Zeeland 19th-century Dutch painters Dutch male painters 19th-century Dutch male artists