Salomon van Ruysdael Naarden 1600/3 - 1670 Haarlem

Arthur Hill-Trevor, 1st Viscount Dungannon (circa 1690 – 1771) or possibly his son, the Hon. Arthur Hill-Trevor (1738 – 1770);
Thence by descent. 

This is one of the finest and most lyrical of the artist’s mature river landscapes. A river, its surface slightly ruffled by a gentle breeze, is seen receding diagonally from the right foreground, with stands of tall trees dominating the far bank to the centre and right, anchoring the composition.  Beneath the most prominent trees a group of three peasants are gathered around a bench conversing.  To their right, a single figure with his back to the viewer watches a cart entering a village, which is seen amongst clumps of bushes and more trees.  A wisp of smoke rises from the chimney of the nearest cottage.  In the left foreground a ferry, laden with passengers, is poled across the river, its darkened form serving as a repoussoir device.  Further vessels are seen beyond.  Towards the horizon are water meadows and, in the far distance, church spires and the roofs of cottages rising above more woodland.

The composition with the bank receding on the diagonal to the left, paralleled in the sky by the horizontal brush strokes of the clouds conducting the eye towards the horizon is entirely typical of Ruysdael’s work of the mid- and late 1640s. Similar types of composition can be found in other works of this date, for example in the river landscape, signed and dated 1644, on panel and of similar dimensions formerly in the Henle collection¹, and in other river landscapes of 1645 in the Kaufman collection² and the Kunsthalle, Hamburg³, and of 1649 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam⁴.

The painting has passed by descent in the collection of the present owners’ family since the 18^th century and probably since circa 1765, the date of its fine Carlo Maratta frame, which was probably made for the picture when it entered the present collection.  The picture is likely to have been acquired by Arthur Hill-Trevor, 1st Viscount Dungannon, of Belvoir, co. Down, and Brynkinalt, Denbighshire, who was the second son of Michael Hill of Hillsborough, and Anne, the daughter and heir of Sir John Trevor (1637–1717). He inherited the Trevor property from his father's half-brother, Marcus Hill (d. 1751), who was son of William Hill and Mary, daughter of Marcus Trevor, first Viscount Dungannon of the first creation. He was Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer in 1754–5. On 17 February 1766 he was created Viscount Dungannon and Baron Hill of Olderfleet. The 1st Viscount was a noted collector and also a patron of Philip Mercier.  His son, the Hon. Arthur Hill-Trevor, who pre-deceased his father, was also a collector and sat to Batoni in 1764⁵.  It is conceivable that it was the younger Hill-Trevor who purchased the picture, especially as his father would already have been quite old at the likely date of acquisition, but the 1st Viscount was still actively commissioning pictures into the 1760s and is perhaps the more likely to have acquired the painting.

1. Sold London, Sotheby’s, 3 December 1997, lot 11

2. Monogrammed and dated 1645, oil on canvas, 98 by 132 cm.; see P. Sutton, Masters of 17^th-Century Dutch landscape Painting, exhibition catalogue, Boston 1987, pp. 471-2, no. 93, plate 47

3. Monogrammed and dated 1645, oil on panel, 64 by 92.5 cm.; see P. Sutton, op. cit., p. 472, under no. 93, fig. 3

4. Signed and dated 1649, oil on canvas, 99.5 by 133.5 cm.; see P. Sutton, op. cit., p. 473, under no. 94, fig. 2

5. see A.M. Clark, Pompeo Batoni, Oxford 1985, p. 296, no. 277, plate 253.