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

Marin;
By whom sold, Paris, Lebrun, March 22, 1790, lot 141, for 1010 francs;
Claude Tolozan;
By whom sold, Paris, Paillet, February 23-24, 1801, lot 99, for 2455 francs to de Pernon (mentioned by C. Blanc, p.188, see Literature);
Sale, [Varroc], Paris, Henry, May 28, 1821, lot 70, for 5500 francs to Laneuville (mentioned by C. Blanc, pp. 347-48, see Literature);
Harry Philips, London, by 1835;
Charles Scarisbrick, Scarisbrick Hall and Wrighton Hall, Lancashire;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, May 11, 1861, lot 229, for £210 to Tayleure;
J. Tayleur, Buntingsdale Hall, Market Drayton, 1861;
By whose executors sold, London, Christie's, April 13, 1923, lot 53, repr., for £2415 to Knoedler;
With Knoedler, London by 1924-25;
With Kleykamp, The Hague, Cat. 1925, no. 46, reproduced;
With Robert Vose, Boston;
Clement O. Miniger, Perrysburg, Ohio;
Mrs. George M. Jones, Jr., Perrysburg, Ohio;
By whom given to the Toledo Museum of Art in 1975 (Acc. no. 75.86).

J. Smith, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, London 1835, vol. VI, no. 68 and 322;
C. Blanc, Le Trésor de la Curiosité, vol. 2, Paris 1858, p. 188, and 347-348;
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, London 1912, vol. IV, pp. 56 and 58, no. 161 and 169b;
F. Lugt, Les Dessins des Écoles du Nord de la Collection Dutuit au Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Petit Palais), Paris 1927, p. 23, cat. no. 40;
J. Rosenberg, Jacob van Ruisdael, Berlin 1928, no. 629;
K.E. Simon, Jacob van Ruisdael, (diss.) Berlin 1927; trade edition reprinted with additions and corrections, Berlin 1930, pp. 74 and 82;
G. Broulhiet, Meindert Hobbema, Paris 1938, no. 2 (as by Hobbema);
L.D.J. Frerichs, Keuze van tekeningen bewaard in het Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1963, pp. 85-86, under no. 73 (as by Hobbema);
J.D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America, New York 1979, p. 294;
S. Slive, "Additions to Jacob van Ruisdael," Burlington Magazine, vol. 133, 1991, p. 602;
J. E. Walford, Jacob van Ruisdael and the Perception of Landscape, New Haven 1991, p. 124 and 128, fig. 128 (as early 1660's);
J. Edwards, Alexandre-Joseph Paillet, Expert et Marchand de Tableau à la fin du XVIIe siècle, Paris 1996, p. 297;
S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael, A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings, and Etchings, New Haven 2001, pp. 142-43, cat. no. 124, reproduced.

In the early 1650s Ruisdael, probably in the company of Nicolaes Berchem, traveled through the border country between the eastern provinces of the Netherlands and western Germany.  The journey was a fruitful one, for the castles, half-timbered houses and mills that he saw provided him with subject matter for his paintings, drawings and prints for the rest of his life.  The Water mill at the Edge of the Wood ultimately derives from that journey.  The mill depicted was an overshot mill, found in Gelderland, Overijssel and Westphalia, the most modern and efficient at that time.  In an overshot mill, the water strikes the wheel near the bottom, causing it to revolve in the direction opposite to the flow of  the water.  At the same time the buckets on the wheel catch the water, carrying it up and over the wheel, using its weight on to help power the wheel on the downturn. 

The mill itself is rather tumbled down, and its rustic decay obviously appealed to Ruisdael, for he depicted it from different points of view three more times in paintings in The Hague, (Slive 116), Melbourne (Slive 120) and formerly in the Hans P. Wiertitsch collection, Vienna (Slive 125).  Ruisdael also made preparatory drawings for the paintings.  The one for the present work is in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam and records the details of the mill and the immediate foreground vegetation (fig. 1).  However, in the finished painting, Ruisdael extends the composition into the distance at the right, setting the mill more comfortably into its surroundings, and balancing it with the towering clouds at the right. 

Hobbema, Ruisdael's best and most famous student, made a painted a copy of the The Water mill at the Edge of the Wood (fig. 2).  Slive describes it as characteristic of Hobbema's style before 1660,  thus providing a terminus ante quem for the present work.¹  He also reminds us:  'Today, when we think of water mills, it is the pupil's rather than the teacher's paintings that most often come to mind.  It is helpful to recall the Ruisdael introduced the motif and treated it with unmatched power and variety before Hobbema, born in 1638, held a brush to his hand.'²

 

1  S. Slive, 2001, Op. cit. p. 143.
2  Ibid., p. 130.