Salomon van Ruysdael

Helen Venetia Vincent, 1st Viscountess D'Abernon (1866–1954), Stoke d’Arbernon, Surrey;

By whose Executors sold, London, Christie's, 18 March 1955, lot 49, for 2,300 guineas, to Slatter;

With Eugene Slatter, London, 1955;

From whom probably acquired, like other Old Masters, by Albert Ehrman (1890–1969), London;

Thence by descent.

In the years around 1650, Ruysdael painted a small number of small-scale upright river and estuary scenes in calm weather that count among his finest achievements. Like the present outstanding example, they are of relatively simple composition, with a few small vessels and distant land. They are painted rapidly, with details of boats, clouds and the horizon line painted wet-in-wet, with no hesitation or revision. They are works of restraint and great subtlety, and of a uniformly gentle and tranquil mood. None of them is dated, but they can be reliably assigned to circa 1650 by comparison with generally larger-scale horizontal compositions painted in a similar way, some of which bear dates.

Note on Provenance
Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess D'Abernon, was a renowned society beauty and diarist, who was associated with The Souls, and believed to have been the model for the characters of Lady Thisbe Crowborough in Max Beerbohm's story Hilary Maltby and Stephen Braxton in Seven Men (1919) and for Lady Irene Silvester in Maurice Baring's story A Luncheon Party (1925). She sat to John Singer Sargent in 1904 during a protracted visit to Venice, and the resulting portrait, now in Birmingham, Alabama, is an extremely convincing testament to her remarkable beauty.