Salomon van Ruysdael

Peter Anthony de Huybert, Lord van Kruningen, of The Hague, Holland;
By descent to his daughter Constantia (b. 1743), who married Robert Trevor, 4th Baron Hampden (b. 1701) in 1743;
By descent to their son Thomas Trevor, 2nd Viscount Hampden (1746-1824) who married, as his second wife in 1805, Jane Maria Brown (1773-1833) (fig. 1) daughter of George Brown of Elliston, who both died without issue;
By descent to their great-nephew, Henry Walter Hope, who married Lady Mary Primrose;
By descent to his great-grandson.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. These two paintings are on perfectly flat, comparatively small upright oak panels, which show no trace of movement in the wood, past or present. Their fine condition suggests a calm history in stable surroundings, with few past interventions. River landscape with a sailing boat. The finely balanced, serene paint surface of this picture reflects both the strength of the original technique and that it has remained very largely undisturbed. There are only a few minor quite recent little retouchings visible under ultra violet light: some tiny touches along the base edge, at the lower left edge, three small retouchings, apparently superficial, in the central cloud, one other to the right of the sail and also near the top in the browner cloud with occasional minute surface touches elsewhere. However these are minimal, possibly superfluous, imperfections. The foreground and horizon are pure and strong, and the balance in the sky, often dislocated by restoration, is naturally integrated. River landscape with a rowing boat. Here also the calm, secure paint surface is finely preserved, with the luminous sweep along the horizon intact and rich darks in the foreground. There are similar occasional minor recent surface retouchings, mainly near the upper right edge next to the great cloud, with some little touches in its underside. The upper right edge is the only place in either painting with a little thinness, but essentially this pair of river landscapes has remained in a rare intact state. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"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."

Pairs of pictures are unusual in Salomon van Ruysdael's oeuvre, but of those few that are known most are upright river landscapes on small panels like the present pair.¹   Ruysdael favoured panels of similar size to the present ones for a number of his river landscapes.  In the mid- to late-1650s he started to paint river and estuary scenes of both upright and horizontal format that re-work over and over again the theme of small vessels in the same weather conditions of light breezes in the late afternoon or early evening in summer, with an increasing concentration on partly cloudy skies and the effects of light and shade that they produce on the water below.  Like the present picture these are all painted with broad horizontal strokes of the brush – predominantly blue above, creamy yellow towards the horizon - on top of which clouds are worked in scumbled laden brushstrokes of creamy white or grey, and the horizon details are always worked into the still-wet horizontal brushstrokes – paint that has been likened to fresh vanilla ice-cream.  Ruysdael's technique was consistent in working in this pattern, which can be observed in many of his pictures from this middle period of his career, and both of the present pair are excellent examples of it.      

A note on the Provenance:
By tradition, this pair of paintings was brought to England by Constantia van Huybert on the occasion of her marriage to Robert Trevor, 4th Baron Hampden (b. 1701) in 1743.  They then passed to their son, Thomas Trevor who died without issue, and thus on to his great-nephew Henry Walter Hope who had been left everything by Jane Brown (fig. 1), his great-aunt and Thomas Trevor's second wife.  Henry married Lady Mary Primrose and the pictures have since passed by direct descent.

1. See W. Stechow,  Salomon van Ruysdael, Berlin 1975, p. 78, nos 60 & 61.