Salomon van Ruysdael Naarden 1600/3 - 1670 Haarlem

J. Magin, Paris¹;
His sale, Paris, Prés[acc. to Frick, Galerie Georges Petit], June 23, 1922, lot 32, for 46,000 francs to Bruck Gilbert²;
With Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris; 
De Fursac,  Brussels;
His sale, Brussels, Galerie Fièvez, December 15, 1923, lot 188, for 95,000 francs to Neumans;
Simeon Del Monte, Brussels, by 1928;
By whose Heirs sold, London, Sotheby's, June 24, 1959, lot 55, to J. Paul Getty for £8,000;
J. Paul Getty, Sutton Place, Surrey, by whose Estate donated to the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1978, no. 78.PA.196.

The Hague, Koninklijke Kunstzaal Kleykamp, Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen door Oud-Hollandsche en Vlaamsche Meesters, 1926, p.22, cat. no. 43; 
The Hague, Koninklijke Kunstzaal Kleykamp, Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen door Oud-Hollandsche en Vlaamsche Meesters, 1932, p. 16, cat. no. 25;
Berkeley, University Art Museum, on loan, April 20, 1993 - July 31, 1996.

G. Glück, La Collection del Monte, Vienna 1928, p. 19, reproduced plate XXV;
W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael, Berlin 1938, p. 85, no. 151;
W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael,  2nd, revised edition,  Berlin 1975, pp. 90-91, no. 151;
B.B. Fredericksen, The J. Paul Getty Museum:  Guidebook, Malibu 1980, p. 56;
P. Sutton, Dutch Art in America, Grand Rapids and Kampen 1986, pp. 144-145 (as unsigned) and under 'List of Paintings, ' p.346;
D. Jaffé, Summary Catalogue of European Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum,, Los Angeles 1997, p. 114, reproduced.

By the mid-1640s a significant change had taken place in Dutch landscape painting:  artists were abandoning tonal compositions, with their clear diagonal structure, for a more colorful and complex interpretation of the surrounding landscapes.  This may have been due in part to the influence of the Italianizing artists or to a general desire by Dutch painters to create a more monumental interpretation of their surroundings.

During this period, Salomon Ruysdael turned away from the carefully organized river landscapes of the early 1630s (see lot 398) toward more complex compositions.  Among his favorite subjects were views of country inns, with men and animals arriving and departing, or just standing and waiting.   In his monograph of 1975, Stechow included almost 40 paintings in his group of  'Halts at Inns'³. In the Travellers Halting Before an Inn,  the main organizing principle, as in his early works, is still opposing diagonals:  the rising line of the tree tops that counters the long, falling line of the pale road.  However, here Ruysdael breaks up the rhythm,  balancing lines of horses and wagons against the strong verticals of three main groups of trees and the solid structure of the inn itself.  The space is far more complex than in his earlier compositions, with views through the trees back into the distance and the introduction of small motifs, like the two standing dogs, to catch the viewer's eye. 

The present work is one of the largest and best integrated of all Ruysdael's inn scenes.  The Halt at the Inn of 1643 in the Norton Simon Museum (Stechow 147) is very similar with its silhouetted figures anchoring the dark foreground and pale road stretching behind.  However the painting is significantly smaller, measuring about two thirds the size of Travellers Halting Before an Inn. 

Salomon van Ruysdael rarely stresses the dramatic.  His great talent lies in his ability to create a sense of harmony and balance.  In the Travellers Halting Before an Inn the various people, animals and wagons move comfortably within the landscape.  The trees are carefully delineated but never so specific that they become portraits and stand apart from their surroundings.  Nor do the clouds overwhelm the composition.  Stechow describes this as a kind of modesty on Salomon's part that rejects the extreme; he created a poetry of moderation that touches the heart by working through the eye⁴.

1  There is an apparently erroneous note in the Frick Art Reference Library Archives, that states the painting was previously in the collection of the Countess Maillé.  However, it does not appear in the sale catalogue of February 28, 1921 as they state.

2  The buyer given in an annotated catalogue at the Frick Art Reference Library.

3  W. Stechow, Op. cit., pp. 89-95.

4  W. Stechow, Op. cit. 1975, p. 34.