Hobbema was born and died in Amsterdam. The son of a carpenter named Lubbert Meyndertsz, he adopted his grandmother´s surname Hobbema quite early on, although it is not known why. He spent a period in an orphanage from 1653, but by about two years later he had left, and soon became the only documented pupil of the leading Amsterdam landscapist, Jacob van Ruisdael, whose influence was to dominate his work. Jan van Kessel may also have been a pupil of Ruisdael; he was close to Hobbema, who was godfather to his child in 1675.