Allaert van Everdingen

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The oak panel is in good condition with a small repaired loss to the central left hand edge. The thin blue sky layer has been significantly augmented and reinforced; there is also visible old yellow restoration to the clouds. The paint and glazing to the trees and the mid and foregrounds is in good condition and well preserved. The varnish is slightly discoloured and has lost saturation properties, removing it would enhance the tonality."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This hitherto unpublished painting belongs to the group of Scandinavian landscapes painted by Everdingen in Haarlem in the first five years after his short trip to Scandinavia, for which he had left in February 1645. Three other paintings from 1650 have survived: The Mountain Landscape with waterfall in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (inv. no. 851.74); the Norwegian Fjord in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (inv. no. 312) and the Scandinavian waterfall with a Watermill in Schleissheim (on loan from the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, inv. no. 387).¹

Everdingen's earliest biographer, Arnold Houbraken, named the Utrecht painter Roelant Savery (1578-1639) and the Haarlem painter Pieter Molijn (1595-1661) as his teachers.²  While there is no documentary evidence to sustain this claim Alice Davies has pointed out in her monograph on the artist that there seems to be sufficient stylistic and thematic evidence to accept Houbraken's statement.³

We are grateful to Dr. Alice Davies for endorsing the attribution to Everdingen on the basis of photographs.

1. See A. Davies, Allaert van Everdingen, 1621-1675. First Painter of Scandinavian Landscape, Doornspijk 2001, pp. 219-20, cat. nos. 39-41, all reproduced plates 39-41.
2. A. Houbraken, De Groote Schouburgh der nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, vol. II, 1721, p. 95.
3. Davies, op. cit., p. 25.