Sunny farmyard with sunflowers

The farmyard painted by Charles Boland is atypical for his oeuvre. He mostly painted animal scenes, in line with artists like Henriette Ronner-Knip. This scene depicts a farmyard in a hilly landscape, with great attention to the effect of the raking sunlight coming in from the right. Throughout the painting he used a loose touch, suggestively applying paint. 

Charles Boland (1850-?) was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. He specialized in animal portraits, but made occasional landscapes and portraits. Early in his career, he decorated the 'Chinese garden of eden' in Hotel Maassen in The Hague, which unfortunately no longer exists. Little is known about his later career, besides his production of mostly animal paintings.