Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael

Possibly P. Yver or H. Nijman, their sale, Amsterdam, de Winter, 6 March 1769, lot 32;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 11 December 1984, lot 94;
With Colnaghi, London, 1985;
With Galerie Sankt Lucas, Vienna, 1985-6;
Hans P. Wertitsch (1939-1996), Vienna;
Thence by descent to the present owners.

Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, and Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Jacob van Ruisdael. Die Revolution der Landschaft, 27 April - 29 July 2002, no.38.

Possibly C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. IV, London 1912, p. 98,  no. 300b;
S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael. A complete catalogue of his paintings, drawings and etchings, New Haven and London 2001, p. 241, cat. no. 292, reproduced.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas has been lined and has a thin wooden keyed stretcher, the cross bars of which are slightly warped but the overall structural condition is sound and stable and no structural intervention is required. Paint Surface The paint surface has an even varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows extensive retouching in the sky with many fine lines filling craquelure and more concentrated areas along the upper horizontal framing edge, in the pale pigments of the clouds and in the blue pigments of the sky particularly in the lower right around the church spire. The largest single area of retouching is in the sky above the small sapling in the centre of the composition which measures approximately 5 x 2 cm. There are retouchings in the trees on the left of the composition but far fewer retouchings in the rocky foreground and in the trees to the left of the church on the right of the composition. There are retouchings along the lower horizontal framing edge and an area measuring approximately 6 x 3 cm at its widest point in the pale rocks in the lower right of the composition. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in reasonably good and stable condition but has been quite extensively retouched in the past and no further work is required.
"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 is a work of Ruisdael's early maturity and can be dated to the 1650s. A pencil and chalk drawing in the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, also showing the motif of a single figure crossing the bridge, may perhaps be related to the present work. Ruisdael seems to have returned to the design in a later picture from the 1670s, a Landscape with a bridge today in the Akademie in Vienna, in which, as here, a bridge over a narrow river connects two wooded banks.

Provenance
Slive (op. cit.) records an old inscription in cyrillic on the reverse which hints at a Russian provenance and gives the name of a possible earlier owner of the work - Kichkenè. It is possible that this work may be the Ruisdael waterfall seen by Gustav Waagen in the collection of Count Paul Stroganoff when he visited St. Petersburg in 1861, but this must perforce remain conjectural.