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Paintings of windmills to 1850

By: hoakley
30 August 2025 at 19:30

There seems to be some confusion over what windmills are, so this weekend I show a selection of paintings of them across Europe. This article covers the period between 1500-1850, when they remained popular. From the twelfth century until the twentieth, they were a common sight on many skylines in northern Europe. Preceding the better-known vertical windmills were various horizontal designs, and windmills continued to flourish until the middle of the nineteenth century. Used wherever there was a need for driving a rotating axle, they were widely employed to grind cereals into flour, power sawmills, make paper, grind materials, and thresh corn.

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Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516), The Adoration of the Magi (detail) (centre panel) (The Adoration of the Magi) (1490-1500) (CR no. 9), oil on oak panel, 138 cm x 138 cm overall when open, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Wikimedia Commons.

Hieronymus Bosch’s uniquely imaginative paintings often featured realistic background landscapes. One recurring setting is a city based on Antwerp or his home town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, with a windmill closest to the viewer. This appears in the centre panel of his triptych The Adoration of the Magi from about 1490-1500, for instance.

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Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516), The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Lisbon) (right wing) (c 1500-10), oil on oak panel, left wing 144.8 x 66.5 cm, central panel 145.1 × 132.8 cm, right wing 144.8 × 66.7 cm, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon. Wikimedia Commons.

A similar windmill appears in a slightly different setting in the version of The Temptation of Saint Anthony now in Lisbon, from around 1500-10, in its right wing. This is shown in the detail below.

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Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516), The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Lisbon) (right wing, detail) (c 1500-10), oil on oak panel, left wing 144.8 x 66.5 cm, central panel 145.1 × 132.8 cm, right wing 144.8 × 66.7 cm, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon. Wikimedia Commons.
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Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/1530–1569), The Procession to Calvary (1564), oil on oak, 124 x 170 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Wikimedia Commons.

The Bruegels also worked amid many windmills, but none seems so prominently out of place than in Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Procession to Calvary from 1564. Windmills were commonly built on hills, where they would benefit from the most consistent wind, but this example on a towering crag is not only geographically inappropriate, but completely impractical. It stands on a circular platform to allow the mill to rotate according to the direction of the wind, but would hardly have been above Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion.

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Jan Josefsz. van Goyen (1596-1656), View of Dordrecht with the Grote Kirk Across the Maas (1644), oil on oakwood, 64.8 x 96.8 cm, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England. Wikimedia Commons.

More at home are the half dozen windmills clustered around the port of Dordrecht in the Netherlands, shown in Jan van Goyen’s View of Dordrecht with the Grote Kirk Across the Maas from 1644.

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Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669), The Mill (1645-48), oil on canvas, 87.6 x 105.6 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.

Rembrandt painted few non-narrative landscapes, but among them is this dramatic view of The Mill (1645-48) seen in the rich rays of twilight.

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Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/1629–1682), The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede (c 1670), oil on canvas, 83 x 101 cm, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Wikimedia Commons.

The great masters of Dutch landscape art like Jacob van Ruisdael must have painted many hundreds of windmills, of which one of the best-known is this view of The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede from about 1670. This small town, now a city, is on the bank of the River Rhine, an ideal location for delivering grain by barge, and shipping the resulting flour. This should have kept the mill as busy as the wind allowed, and its owner prosperous.

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John Constable (1776-1837), Landscape with Windmills near Haarlem, after Jacob van Ruisdael (1830), oil on oak panel, 31.6 x 34 cm, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons.

This view of a Landscape with Windmills near Haarlem was painted by John Constable in 1830, almost two centuries after the original made by Jacob van Ruisdael.

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William Hogarth (1697–1764), The Idle ‘Prentice Turn’d Away and Sent to Sea (finished print) (Industry and Idleness 5) (1747), engraving, 25.4 x 34 cm. Wikimedia Commons.

Windmills were also a common sight along the lower reaches of the River Thames. William Hogarth’s print from his Industry and Idleness series shows its anti-hero Idle being rowed out to join his ship at Cuckold’s Point on the River Thames, opposite what were then the West Indian docks, between Limehouse and Greenwich. Long after these windmills had gone, this section of the river was still involved with the grain trade.

The White House at Chelsea 1800 by Thomas Girtin 1775-1802
Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), The White House at Chelsea (1800), watercolour on paper, 29.8 x 51.4 cm, The Tate Gallery, London, Bequeathed by Mrs Ada Montefiore 1933. Photographic Rights © Tate 2016, CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/girtin-the-white-house-at-chelsea-n04728

There were other windmills upstream of the city of London too. In what must be Thomas Girtin’s most famous painting of The White House at Chelsea, from 1800, the artist looks upstream of the River Thames from a location close to the modern Chelsea Bridge. The landmarks shown include, from the left, Joseph Freeman’s windmill (or Red House Mill), a horizontal air mill, the white house close to where Battersea Park is now, Battersea Bridge, and Chelsea Old Church. Girtin painted this when he was twenty-five, and showing greater promise than his rival JMW Turner. Two years later Girtin died of asthma.

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John Varley (1778–1842), Red House Mill, Battersea, Surrey (date not known), watercolour and graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper, 24.4 × 34.3 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.

A few years later the topographic painter John Varley painted this close-up view of the same Red House Mill, Battersea, Surrey, looking back in the opposite direction.

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Georges Michel (1763–1843), The Mill of Montmartre (c 1820), oil on canvas, 73.7 x 101.6 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.

Some of the well-known windmills supplying the city of Paris with its flour were those above its outskirts on Montmartre Hill. Georges Michel’s view of The Mill of Montmartre was probably painted in about 1820, by which time there were only a few left.

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Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828), Barges on a River (c 1825-6) (197), oil on millboard, 25.1 x 35.3 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.

Richard Parkes Bonington probably painted Barges on a River in around 1825-6 when he was travelling near the French town of Nantes. The windmill seen behind the trees is reminiscent of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting.

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Johan Jongkind (1819–1891), View of Maassluis in Winter (1848), oil on panel, 24 x 41 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

During his detailed realist period early in his career, Johan Jongkind painted this View of Maassluis in Winter (1848). Following the long tradition of landscape painting in the Netherlands, he sets his horizon low and paints a wonderful winter sky.

The first modern pigment: Prussian blue

By: hoakley
3 August 2025 at 19:30

Until the advent of chemistry in the eighteenth century, early in the Age of Enlightenment, the vast majority of pigments occurred in nature, even if the minerals or plant matter from which they were derived had to be specially processed. The first truly synthetic pigment was so ancient that it had been forgotten completely by the Middle Ages: Egyptian blue was originally made before about 3000 BCE by heating together powdered rocks and sand, but that was an exception. It wasn’t until the early years of the eighteenth century that a hydrated iron hexacyanoferrate complex soon known as Prussian blue was synthesized.

No one knows who first made Prussian blue, nor exactly when it was first synthesized. It seems to have appeared initially around 1704, and its origins have been attributed variously to Diesbach in Berlin, or Mak in Leipzig. For once its name is appropriate, as it was a product of the Prussian Empire. Its potential as a colourant was recognised by 1710 when it went on sale in Berlin, and by about 1724 it was being manufactured across Europe.

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Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722) and Henrik van Limborch (1681-1759), Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph (before 1722-28), oil on panel, 61.1 x 47.5 cm, Allen Memorial Art Museum (Mrs. F. F. Prentiss Fund, 1963), Oberlin, OH. . Courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

Among the earliest surviving oil paintings to use Prussian Blue is that by Adriaen van der Werff and Henrik van Limborch, of Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph. This was started by van der Werff before he died in 1722, and the paint containing Prussian blue pigment is thought to have been applied by him to the curtain at the upper left. After van der Werff’s death, his pupil Henrik van Limborch finished the painting between 1727-28.

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Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), The Italian Comedians (c 1720), oil on canvas, 63.8 x 76.2 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.

Another early example of the proven use of Prussian blue is Antoine Watteau’s The Italian Comedians from about 1720.

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Canaletto (1697–1768) (attr), Grand Canal from Palazzo Balbi toward the Rialto (1720-23), oil on canvas, 144 x 207 cm, Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice, Italy. Wikimedia Commons.

Canaletto is one of the first Masters to have used the new pigment extensively. Grand Canal from Palazzo Balbi toward the Rialto from 1720-23 has been attributed to him as one of his earliest surviving works, and its blues have been found to contain Prussian blue.

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Canaletto (1697–1768), Rio dei Mendicanti (1723-24), oil on canvas, 143 x 200 cm, Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice, Italy. Wikimedia Commons.

Canaletto was quick to adopt the pigment for use in almost all his paintings, including this view of the Rio dei Mendicanti from 1723-24, above, and his famous The Stonemason’s Yard (c 1725), below.

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Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) (1697–1768), Campo S. Vidal and Santa Maria della Carità (‘The Stonemason’s Yard’) (c 1725), oil on canvas, 123.8 x 162.9 cm, The National Gallery (Sir George Beaumont Gift, 1823), London. Image courtesy of and © The National Gallery, London.

As experience was gained in using this pigment, it became controversial. Some artists were confident that its colour was stable and didn’t change or fade, but others experienced problems as bad as or even worse than those of the notoriously fugitive indigo blue, which it had generally replaced. It has gradually become understood that adverse results of lightfastness testing (and experience in paintings) have depended on the mixture of Prussian blue with other colours, particularly with white paint, and the presence of impurities in the pigment.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, Prussian blue was widely used with a range of binding media, with the notable exception of fresco and other alkaline media with which it proved incompatible.

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William Hogarth (1697–1764), Marriage A-la-Mode: 2, The Tête à Tête (c 1743), oil on canvas, 69.9 × 90.8 cm, The National Gallery, London. Courtesy of The National Gallery London, inventory NG114.

William Hogarth’s paintings in his Marriage A-la-Mode series have been found to contain both smalt and Prussian blues. In The Tête à Tête (c 1743), smalt has been found in the ornate carpet, and I suspect that the ornamental pillars behind the woman rely on Prussian blue, at least in part. Hogarth trained as Prussian blue came to the ascendant, and wouldn’t have painted much before it had become widely available.

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Jean-Baptiste Perronneau (1715/16-1783), A Girl with a Kitten (c 1743), pastel on paper, 59.1 x 49.8 cm, The National Gallery (Presented by Sir Joseph Duveen, 1921), London. Image courtesy of and © The National Gallery, London.

Jean-Baptiste Perronneau’s A Girl with a Kitten from about 1743 is a fine example of the use of Prussian blue in pastels: the girl’s blue dress and the background have both been found to contain the pigment.

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William Blake (1757-1827), Lucia Carrying Dante in his Sleep (from Dante’s “Divine Comedy”) (1824-27), watercolour, black ink, graphite, and black chalk on off-white antique laid paper, 37.2 x 52.2 cm, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum (Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop), Cambridge, MA. Courtesy of Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum.

Prussian blue also became popular in water-based media. William Blake’s Lucia Carrying Dante in his Sleep, from his series depicting Dante’s Divine Comedy painted in watercolour between 1824-27, is a good example. In this and several other of his paintings, Blake used the pigment on its own and mixed with gamboge yellow in what was known as Prussian green.

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James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (1863-65), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.

Prussian blue pigment has been found in the blue passages in Whistler’s The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (1863-65), from his Peacock Room, shown above and in the detail below.

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James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (detail) (1863-65), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.

The use of different blue pigments varied markedly among the French Impressionists and their successors. Paul Cézanne and Georges Seurat appear to have used Prussian blue seldom if at all, but it’s well known in the work of Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.

Claude Monet, Bathers at la Grenouillère (1869), oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm, The National Gallery, London. WikiArt.
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Bathers at la Grenouillère (1869), oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm, The National Gallery, London. WikiArt.

Although Monet’s Bathers at la Grenouillère (1869) contains cobalt blue in the brighter mid-blues of the water surface and details in the boats, darker blues towards the left, and in the clothing of some of the figures and their reflections, are almost certainly Prussian blue.

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Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), La Mousmé (1888), oil on canvas, 73.3 x 60.3 cm, The National Gallery of Art (Chester Dale Collection), Washington, DC. Courtesy of The National Gallery of Art.

Vincent van Gogh’s portrait of La Mousmé from 1888 illustrates some of the difficulties of identifying pigment use. Its unusual title is derived from the Japanese word musume, meaning girl; at the time the French word was understood to mean an ‘easy’ girl.

Infra-red images demonstrate van Gogh’s use of at least two different blues, one of which has been identified as Prussian blue. The two (or more) blue pigments aren’t distributed evenly: on the girl’s jacket, the three blue stripes to the left of the row of buttons contain the most Prussian blue, while the three under her right armpit, which look darker, contain little or no Prussian blue. Van Gogh also mixed yellow with Prussian blue to form the green of the flowers she holds in her hand.

Prussian blue remained a popular pigment in oil and watercolour paints well into the twentieth century, and is still offered in commercial ranges. For many artists, though, it has been replaced by much more recent synthetic blue pigments, such as phthalocyanine (‘phthalo’) blue, introduced around 1970, and is seldom used in Prussian green.

Reference

Barbara H Berrie (1997) Artists’ Pigments, vol 3, ed Elisabeth West Fitzhugh, Archetype. ISBN 978 1 904982 76 0.

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