- 55
Salomon van Ruysdael
Description
- Salomon van Ruysdael
- A river scene with figures in a rowing boat in the foreground
- signed with initials and dated lower left: SR (in ligature) 1664
- oil on oak panel
- 14¼in by 21½in
Provenance
Thence by descent until sold, London, Christie's, 10 December 1948, lot 68, for 900 guineas to Drews;
With Eugene Slatter, London, 1949;
From whom probably acquired, like other Old Masters, by Albert Ehrman (1890–1969), London (recorded by Stechow as in his collection in 1975);
Thence by descent.
Exhibited
London, Eugene Slatter Gallery, Dutch and Flemish Masters, 27 May – 9 July 1949, no. 5.
Literature
Connoisseur, vol. LXXIII, June 1949, p. XL, reproduced;
W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael, Berlin 1975, p. 152, cat. no. 534A.
Condition
"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."
Catalogue Note
The present work is executed with all the rich tones of the saturated greens, blues and reds and vigorous brushwork that typify Ruysdael's later work, in contrast to the lighter, tonal palette of the 1630s and early 1640s, for which he was famed during that decade. The effect here is to enhance the brighter clouds lit from behind, which are formed with free, swiftly-applied brushstrokes, as well as the highlights in the reflection picked up in the gently rippling water, itself defined by contrasting dashes of impasto and smoother, glassier passages. Ruysdael employs the cluster of trees as a repoussoir on the left side, balanced by the sails of the boats further along the bank, as the viewer's eye is led, seemingly by a line of ducks, either in the water or in flight, to the illuminated horizon and silhouette of a church. The two dated river landscapes of the same year in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, possibly originally pendants, are most comparable to the present work in their diagonal compositions, tonality and execution.2
Stechow considered a work of identical size, depicting the Pelikuspoort at Utrecht, also exhibited from the collection of William Dickinson in 1862 and in the sale of his pictures in 1948 as the preceding lot 67, to be the probable pendant to this picture, although they are dated one year apart.3
1. Inv. no. MJA332, Musée Jeanne d'Aboville, La Fère.
2. Inv. nos os I-766 and os I-767; see Stechow 1975, pp. 129 and 152, cat. nos 382B and 534B.
3. See Stechow 1975, p. 142, cat. no. 470B.