Jacob Jan van der Maaten

Jacob Jan van der Maaten (Elburg, 4 January 1820 – Apeldoorn, 16 April 1879) was a Dutch painter and etcher. Van der Maaten was a pupil of Hendrikus van de Sande Bakhuyzen and studied at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. In 1852 he became a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. Later, Van der Maaten became teacher at the so-called King’s School in Apeldoorn (1866–1879).

Van der Maaten was a landscape painter who captured summer landscapes in bright colors (lots of green and manganese blue), usually with some figures and cattle. He worked in The Hague (1843–1852), Amsterdam (1854–1855), The Hague (1857–1864) and in Apeldoorn (until 1879).

Van der Maaten was one of the founders of Pulchri Studio in The Hague, along with Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch, Jan Weissenbruch, Willem Roelofs, Jan Frederik van Deventer, Willem Antonie van Deventer and FH Michael.

Van der Maaten’s masterpiece was “Begrafenis in het koren” (Burial in the cornfield), which in 1863 was the success of the exhibition in Brussels. Later it was exhibited at the International Exposition (1867) in Paris. Vincent van Gogh admired this painting so much that he had a reproduction of it on the wall. Vincent van Gogh referred in several letters to his brother Theo van Gogh to the work of Van der Maaten.

The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Groninger Museum, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, CODA Museum Apeldoorn and Museum Elburg have paintings of Van der Maaten.