Aert van der Neer

The actual painting is less red and cooler in tone than the catalogue illustration suggests. The green and blue hues are more natural in real. The panel consist of 2 planks joined horizontally and has a slight curvature. The panel is bevelled along all edges. No damages are apparent. The paint layer is very nicely preserved, in particular the impasto in the highlights and the trees. Minor retouchings can be observed in the sky. The paint surface is under a slightly dirty varnish layer. Inspection under UV light reveals a small spot of retouching in the centre and in the house on the bridge, and minor strengthening is visible in the houses and in the horseman. Offered in a plain gold painted wood frame in fair condition.
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This hitherto unrecorded painting by Van der Neer is a lovely addition to the small group of daylight compositions in the artist's oeuvre. It shows a tranquil village scene with figures in a barge, pulled by a horseman on a path, a washerwoman is doing her laundry to the right side, barely rimpling the water. In fact, this water is still so calm, that it beautifully reflects its surroundings, almost serving as a mirror.

Although daylight scenes are rare in Van der Neer's oeuvre, on grounds of style this work can probably be dated to the early 1640s. In his earlier work of the previous decade, Van der Neer was more indebted to Flemish models, but from the late 1630s and 1640s onwards, his landscapes became more atmospheric and realistically rendered.¹ He started using a more colourful palette and his depictions of farmbuildings and shrubbery began to show more detail. A fine example of a summer landscape of these years is the River landscape with duck hunter and manor, in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut Frankfurt (inv. no. 1090), which is dated 1642.² It is in these years that Van der Neer also started to occupy himself with the effects of reflected light and atmosphere, which he explored increaslingly in both winter and moonlit landscapes, for which he is best remembered.

In composition and subject matter, the present lot can be compared to a painting in a private collection, which shows a similar river view with a small village and a drawbridge, albeit this time set in the evening. Schulz dates this painting to circa 1645.³ Other examples of his daylight views in the 1640s are a River landscape with figures ferrying horses, also from circa 1645, which was sold London, Sotheby's, 3 July 1997, lot 9 (£300,000), or the Landscape with figures near a country house, recently sold in these Rooms, 18 May 2010, lot 58 (€ 72.000). Another work in this style is the Village scene at daytime, in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden (inv. no. 1554).⁴

We are grateful to Dr. Wolfgang  Schulz for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs.

1. See W. Schulz, Aert van der Neer, Doornspijk 2002, pp. 27-8.
2. op.cit., p. 32, cat. no. 335, reproduced fig. 94, colour plate 31.
3. ibid., p. 272, cat. no. 586, reproduced fig. 119.
4. ibid., p. 213, cat. no. 324, reproduced fig. 96.