Salomon van Ruysdael

American private collection;
With Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam 1927;
With D. Katz, Dieren, 1934;
With Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, by 1936;
With Böhler, Lucerne, by 1949;
With Schaeffer Gallery, New York;
From whom acquired by George and Ilse Nelson in the early 1950s.

Rotterdam, Goudstikker, Catalogue de la Collection Goudstikker d'Amsterdam, 11 - 26 June 1927, cat. no. 60;
Amsterdam, Goudstikker, Catalogue des Nouvelles Acquisitions de la Collection Goudstikker, October - November 1927, cat. no. 114;
Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum, Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen van Oud-Hollandsche Meesters uit de Collectie Katz te Dieren, 17 November - 15 December 1934, cat. no. 25.

W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael, Berlin 1938, pp. 27 and 102, cat. no. 294, reproduced plate 32, no. 44;
W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael, Berlin 1975, pp. 27 and 112, cat. no. 294, reproduced plate 42, no. 57.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is in beautiful state and should be hung as is. It is painted on a single piece of oak. The paint layer is stable and clean. The only retouches of any note are around the small vessel in the center of the composition and in the sails of the large vessel on the right. There is a thin scratch above the rowboat and there are a few other dots in the sky, which comprise the remainder of the retouches.
"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 evocative panel is one of only a handful of dated marines by Saloman van Ruysdael.  He began working in this genre in the 1640s and within his oeuvre the term "marine" is widely defined to encompasses storms at sea, river views and coastal scenes, such as this. 

Over the course of his career, Ruysdael's palette changed from the restricted range of tones in the 1630s to a brighter, more colorful use of paint in the 1640s and finally to a balance of form, color and mood in the 1660s as we see here.¹ He uses a free brush stroke to capture the transient nature of this everyday scene.  Clouds fill the sky, but it is nonetheless bright blue, and in the foreground the sun peaks through, creating a white band of light that crosses the waves -- a kind of path for the fishermen in the rowboat to follow.  We can see that the wind is picking up, for Ruysdael shows how it catches the sails and the pennants, while above, he paints the clouds pushed relentlessly back and to the right.  He aligns the sail boats so they run against the wind, their upright forms creating a series of stops to halt the prevailing rightward movement. 

In the foreground, Ruysdael paints the choppy waters of the bay in bold strokes of blue, grey-blue or white, allowing the warm brown of the panel's ground to show through, to create the sense of light and shadow.  In the distance is a roughly sketched town, picked out in greens and tans.  In the 1927 exhibition in Rotterdam, the town was identified as De Zandkreek near Veere, in Zealand, but it was dropped in later catalogues.²  Today it is impossible to confirm the the identification because the landscape has changed so much.  However, it is more likely that this was not intended to depict a specific place, for the locale is not important; it is the  moment and the mood that define this intimate panel and endow it with a timeless quality that was as appealing to the seventeenth century viewer as it is today.

1.  Stechow 1975, pp. 26-27.
2.  See Catalogue de la Collection Goudstikker d'Amsterdam, under exhibition history.