Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael

Paper somewhat thin in places (has presumably been formerly stuck down on a backing, and then removed). Window mounted with strong Japan paper. Light foxing and some surface dirt, but medium good and fresh throughout. Sold in a modern painted wood frame.
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This well preserved, newly discovered drawing adds significantly to our understanding of the draughtsmanship of one of the most important and influential masters of 17^th-century Dutch landscape, Jacob van Ruisdael.  The number of surviving drawings by Ruisdael is not great – just 130 or so sheets – and this is only the third major, previously unknown drawing to appear on the market in the last three decades.¹  Furthermore, although a number of Ruisdael's drawings are signed with a monogram, Seymour Slive’s 2001 catalogue raisonné of the artist’s drawings lists only four others that are, like this, fully signed with the artist's entire name, two of which are the famous depictions of the Jewish cemetery at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, now in the Teyler Museum, Haarlem.² 

Even if it had not been signed, the attribution of this understated yet very subtly composed drawing would have been clear from the distinctive handling in the foliage, where characteristic dabs and strokes of different shades of gray wash are combined in a manner very typical of Ruisdael. Equally typical is the sophisticated system of lighting, with the dark left foreground contrasting with the light-bathed barn behind, and the dappled foliage towards the right. Perhaps the most comparable drawings in terms of handling are two views of the ruins of Egmond aan den Hoef, both in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, or the drawings of Alkmaar, in the Amsterdam Museum and the British Museum.³ Both the views of Alkmaar and the four other fully signed drawings can be dated to the period between c. 1649 and the mid 1650s, so it would seem likely that this newly identified drawing also originates from that stage of Ruisdael’s career.

However typical of Ruisdael this drawing is in terms of technique, its composition is far more unusual, which may perhaps explain why, even despite its signature, it has previously escaped the literature on the artist. Only very rarely do we see such an enclosed view in Ruisdael’s works, painted or drawn. Interestingly, another drawing of precisely the same location is known, in the de Boer Collection, Amsterdam (inv. B 682) executed by an anonymous artist in Ruisdael’s circle from exactly the same viewpoint, though clearly at a different moment, as in that drawing the tree to the right of the gateway, here just a bare trunk, is tall and fully foliated (the composition also extends further to the right, to include another building). This rustic location was therefore one that was known both to Ruisdael himself and to another artist in his circle.

We are grateful to Jeroen Giltay, who has kindly endorsed the attribution on the basis of a digital image.

^1. The others were the impressive, large drawing from the late 1640s, discovered in 2012 and sold, London, Sotheby’s, 7 July 2012, lot 93, and the very unusual view of Harderwijk, sold New York, Sotheby's, 28 January 2016, lot 227.

^2. S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael. A complete catalogue of His Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven/London 2001, nos. D 40, D 60, D 61 and D 135.

^3. Slive, op. cit., nos. D3, D4, D10 and D79 respectively