Kasteel Nijenrode’s origins go back to the 13th century, but most of the existing structure dates from the 16th and 17th centuries, with some later additions. As one can clearly see in the present painting, Nijenrode is prominently sited on the banks of a river: the Vecht, near Breukelen, and not far from Amsterdam. From 1907 until 1930 Nijenrode belonged to the coffee merchant Michiel Onnes (1878–1972), who styled himself Onnes van Nijenrode upon acquiring the castle after his return from Brazil, and who also owned the present painting. Jacques Goudstikker acquired Nijenrode from Onnes and used it as a country retreat, filling it with art treasures. In 1936 he published a history and guidebook of Nijenrode, which had been opened to the public the year before. He acquired the present painting at Onnes van Nijenrode's sale in 1933, no doubt in the light of his acquisition of the castle three years before, but surely also aware that Ruysdael was an under-appreciated artist whose time had come.

Perhaps due to its accessibility from Amsterdam via the river Vecht that linked Utrecht to the sea, and certainly due to its architectural distinction and prominent riverside position, Nijenrode was often drawn, painted and engraved in the second half of the 17th century and subsequently. The earliest accurate depiction of it is in Theodor Matham’s engraving of circa 1645 (fig. 1). It was the subject of one of Roelant Roghman’s portrait drawings of Dutch castles made in the late 1640s (fig. 2).¹ The architectural painter Jan van der Heyden painted Nijenrode no less than six times, usually incorporating its façade, with the Baroque classical portico added by Bernard van Bongard in his renovation of Nijenrode between 1632 and 1642, in fantasy settings. Jacques Goudstikker owned at least one of Van der Heyden’s Nijenrode prospects, an architecturally accurate painting but set in a capriccio park landscape without the River Vecht, which he acquired in 1634 and which was restituted to his heir, Marei von Saher, over sixty years later.²

Salomon van Ruysdael also painted views of Nijenrode on the river Vecht on at least four occasions, the earliest, a work dated 1649, that Jacques Goudstikker acquired in 1632 (also restituted to Marei von Saher in 2006).³ This was followed by another, dated 1650, in the Staatsgalerie Aschaffenburg, while the latest, the only one on a canvas support, painted in 1663, is in Madrid.⁴ All Ruysdael’s Nijenrode views depict the castle from an imaginary viewpoint mid-stream in the river Vecht, with Nijenrode on the left bank, which runs on a diagonal from the left foreground.

In the Goudstikker Salomon van Ruysdael exhibition catalogue both the present work and the 1649 one are listed as dated ‘1643 (?)’. There may be traces of a date on the present picture following the signature, but it cannot be read. On grounds of style, however, it should plausibly date from after 1650 and cannot be as early as 1643.

¹ Zeist, Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg; see W.Th. Kloek, De kasteeltekeningen van Roelandt Roghman, Alphen aan den Rijn 1990, vol. I, p. 159, no. 140, reproduced.

² Sutton 2008, pp. 200–3, no. 27, reproduced.

³ Sutton 2008, pp. 172–75, no. 21, reproduced.

⁴ Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; no. CTB.1999.39.