Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael Haarlem 1628/9 - 1682 Amsterdam

E.M. Engelberts of Hoorn or Jan Tersteeg;
Their sale, Amsterdam, van der Schley, June 13, 1808, lot 129, for 285 Florins to Du Pré;
Possibly Lord Stratton;
F. Fleischmann, London, 1903;
With Edward Speelman, London;
With Albert Brod, London, 1957, by whom sold to
Julius Lowenstein, London;
Sold anonymously by his Heirs, London, Christie’s, December 10, 1993, lot 22;
With Douwes, Amsterdam, and in their catalogue, November 1995-January 1996, no. 56;
Private collection, Bremen.

London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1900, no. 33, lent by F. Fleischmann.

C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné…, vol. IV, London 1912, p. 316, no. 1017 (`Masterly in handling’);
S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael.  A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven & London 2001, p. 477, no. 678.

Jacob van Ruisdael’s winter landscapes generally date from the 1660s (like this picture) or 1670s, and it is likely that he only started to paint them well after his move from Haarlem to Amsterdam in 1655.  They are among his rarest works: Slive lists only 32 in his catalogue raisonné.  Most of them, like the present work, show a brooding sky filled with dark, snow-laden clouds, seen in the afternoon when the light is already starting to fade.  They are surely his most atmospheric works.  Most of them convey a sense of unease at the threatening stormy weather, and his depiction of cold weather fully captures the harsh reality of a Dutch winter – in direct opposition from the bright winter pieces of Avercamp, with myriad figures enjoying fun on the ice, or even the anecdotal depictions of Aert van der Neer.

This picture depicts a timber-framed water mill with figures trying to make a hole in the ice to fish.  The vernacular architecture is of the eastern Netherlands, and the mill is very like those that he painted, with help from drawings made on the spot, following his journey to Gelderland and Over-Ijssel in the early 1650s.

F. Fleischmann (see Provenance) owned several fine paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael, including The Great Oak, one of Ruisdael’s most celebrated paintings, given by Mr. & Mrs. Edward Carter to the L.A. County Museum in 1985.  It is not known what happened to the present picture, but most of the Fleischmann collection passed by descent to F.N. & O.S. Ashcroft in the early 1950s, when they were dispersed via the London trade.