Salomon van Ruysdael

Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Christie's, 25 June 1904, lot 104, for 225 gns 15s. to Wallis;
M. Bromberg collection, Hamburg, 1914;
Dr. van Vollenhoven, Driebergen;
His sale, Amsterdam, Frederik Muller, 15 April 1932, lot 964, for Dfl. 7,800, where presumably unsold;
By whom loaned to the Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1935-46 (cat. no. 876);
By descent to M. van Vollenhoven, Driebergen, 1975;
In the collection of the present owners since 1995.

Berlin, Akademie der Kunst, Austellung von Werken alter Kunst, aus dem Privatbesitz von Mitgliedern des Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums-Verein, May 1914, no. 152 (as dated 1656);
On loan to the Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1935-46, no. 876;
Rotterdam, Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Het Nederlandsche zee- en riviergezicht in de XVIIde eeuw, 22 December 1945 - 3 February 1946, no. 44.

W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael, Berlin 1975, p. 129, no. 388.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine flat oak panel, with one joint at lower centre and a fairly old cradle, although there is no sign of past movement. The restoration is quite recent, and there are just a scattering of little cosmetic touches along the grain in some places in the sky, with rather more along the joint and in the darker undersides of the clouds that are naturally less densely painted, with just a few lines of retouching in the landscape. The figures are beautifully strong as is the deep rich medium of the brushwork in the foliage, with the fine intact sunlit fencing along the path in the foreground beneath the trees. The signature is also crisp and strong. The distant horizon is finely preserved; the sky above being as often is the case slightly more cleaned than elsewhere. 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."

Painted in 1666, this is a typical example from Ruysdael's late maturity and represents a culmination of his most-favoured subject matter, that of a ferry laden with cattle, horses and humans crossing to a nearby shore. Ruysdael's earliest depiction of the subject in the National Gallery, London, is dated 1631 and differs markedly from the present work in its tonal coloration of, almost exclusively, light greens and browns, a style for which he was much famed during that decade. During the 1640s and 1650s his palette took on much richer tones, culminating in the deep contrast of light and dark offset by the saturated greens, blues and reds seen here. Ruysdael's numerous examples of the ferry-boat theme attest to its seemingly limitless possibilities; here a line of conjoined cottages line a river bank, receding into the distance along a marked diagonal, offset above by the brooding trees and below by their shimmering reflections in the rippling water around the ferry. This is one of Ruysdael's last dated works and yet it encompasses all of the vigorous brushwork, compositional complexities and observational details on which his reputation was made several decades before.