Salomon van Ruysdael

Margaret, Countess Paulett, circa 1800;
Thence by descent to the Earl of Paulett:
His deceased sale, London, Christie's, 18-21 June 1821;
Major Y.A. Burges;
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Deceased's Estate'), London, Christie's, 22 April 1988, lot 77, for £110,000;
With Thomas Brod, London, 1989;
Private collection;
Thence by inheritance to the present owner.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. These two paintings are on small oak panels both bevelled all round. Both have remained flat with one brief crack from the lower right edge, long ago backed with a little canvas strip, in the scene with a rowing boat in the foreground on the right. The crack is in the water and is clearly old and long stable, with secure paint and a line of retouching from the recent restoration of both paintings. The brushwork remains in beautifully fresh intact condition almost throughout in both paintings. Estuary scene with a sailing ship towing a small boat. Signed on the side of the ship. There are some little light strengthening retouches in the blue sky mainly along the top edge with one slightly more substantial retouching in the cloud just to the left of the mast at the top of the shorter sail, and another small retouching at the left edge in the lower sky. The smallest detail in the ship, the water, along the horizon and elsewhere is beautifully preserved, with the fine flecked brushwork crisp and fresh across the surface. Estuary scene with sailing ships and a rowing boat to the right. Signed in the water to the left. With the narrow retouching along the old crack at lower right mentioned above, there are also similar little surface touches as the pendant strengthening the blue of the sky occasionally, and another small retouching on either side of the opening in the clouds at upper centre. Elsewhere the paint surface is as vivid as in the pendant with little wind flecked ripples in the brushwork. 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."

The two estuary scenes forming this unpublished true pair of pictures are among Salomon van Ruysdael's smallest-scale works, and are done with an unmatched freedom of the brush.  They were clearly painted with immense speed: entirely wet-in-wet and without hesitation or revision, and they are a remarkable testament to Ruysdael's genius. 

Stechow, who was unaware of the present pair, lists a handful of very small-scale estuary scenes.¹  One such, in the Harold Samuel Collection, The Guildhall, London, was thought by Peter Sutton to be Ruysdael's smallest-scale work, although it is a little larger than the present pair.²  Sutton dated the Samuel picture to the 1640s, whereas Stechow is inclined to place very freely-painted small-scale works rather later.  For example, he dated circa 1660-62 a "skizzenhaft" estuary scene featuring a close-hauled kaag towing a rowing boat very similar to the first of the present pair and almost as freely painted (unsigned, oil on panel, 18.6 by 23.3 cm.); sold at Sotheby's in London, 3 July 1997, lot 180.³

It is fairly certain that many pairs of estuary scenes by Salomon van Ruysdael are not true pendants but rather paintings of similar size paired up.  Peter Sutton discussed this question in the catalogue of the 1994 Madrid exhibition, and concluded that "there are at least two pairs of paintings ... which were conceived by the artist as pendants".⁴  The present two paintings were also undoubtedly conceived by Ruysdael as a pair, and may well have been done on sections of the same plank of oak.  

1.  See W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael, Berlin 1975, p. 113, nos. 295A-300.
2.  Idem, no. 295A; P.C. Sutton, Dutch & Flemish Seventeenth-century paintings. The Harold Samuel Collection, Cambridge 1992, pp. 179-81, no. 612, reproduced in colour plate 61.
3. Stechow, op. cit., no. 300 (wrongly as on canvas).
4.  P.C. Sutton, The Golden Age of Dutch Landscape Painting, exhibition catalogue, Madrid 1994, p. 218, under no. 62.