thought that his compositions were mainly assembled and painted in the studio from a number of elements presumably recorded in drawings. Reputation Hobbema is not mentioned by Arnold Houbraken, the Vasari of the Dutch Golden Age, or indeed any literary source during his lifetime at all, and his work rarely appears in early auction catalogues, fetching little when it does. The English, and to some extent the French, were more appreciative of his work than the Dutch in the 18th century, and a large number of his works left Holland. His style had become influential and respected by the Romantic period, and began to climb in value, especially in England. He was loved by John Constable, John Crome and the Norwich School of painters, all of whom he influenced. By the 1820s prices could be over £1,000, and by 1900 over £10,000. A record price of £33,000 (equivalent) was reached in 1933 with a sale to America of a work from the Jan Six collection. The highest recent prices include a painting now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague, sold in December 1995 for £3.74 million (illustrated above), and a larger picture now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, sold in July 2001 for £6.5 million, both at Sotheby's. Hobbema's modern critical reputation is equivocal, with several critics expressing a degree of boredom with his woodland scenes, while others are more appreciative. The Avenue at Middelharnis remains in near-universal favour, placed in a category by itself: "it is as if the artist had produced only a single picture" according to Christopher Lloyd. The situation is not helped by the surprising lack of art historical scholarship on him; there has not been a monograph since 1938, and that received a savage review from Neil MacLaren, the National Gallery's Dutch specialist. Kenneth Clark thought that "an artist as skilful as Hobbema grows tedious, because the elaboratedly described trees in his woodland scenes are not subordinated to a general principle of light". Other In 1891 a hamlet in Alberta (Canada) was called Hobbema after the painter. On 1 January 2014 the name was changed to Maskwacis (meaning Bear Hills) on request of the native Cree who live in the area. Notes References Ingamells, John, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Pictures, Vol IV, Dutch and Flemish, Wallace Collection, 1992, "Getty": Masterpieces of Painting in the J. Paul Getty Museum, ed. Denise Allen, 2003,