Lot 25: SALOMON VAN RUYSDAEL

SALOMON VAN RUYSDAEL NAARDEN 1600/3 - 1670 HAARLEM A RIVER LANDSCAPE WITH TRAVELLERS AND HERDERS ON A PATH, A CHURCH BEYOND signed and dated lower centre: S. VRVYSDAEL. 1646 ( VR in ligature) oil on oak panel 64.3 by 88.5 cm.; 25 1/4 by 34 3/4 in.

The Grafen von Finkenstein, Bavaria, by 1840, until the 1990s;
With Johnny van Haeften, London, and Otto Naumann, New York, from whom acquired by the present owner in 1998.

Painted in 1646, this beautifully preserved river landscape is an outstanding work from Salomon van Ruysdael's full maturity, directly following his 'tonal phase' of the late 1630s and early 1640s. Under a vast, bright blue sky, scattered with the remaining cloud from a recently passed storm, left in evidence by the shallow lying water on the country road, a herdsman drives his cattle past two fishermen slouching lazily on the river bank beneath a lonesome tree. Beyond, an elegantly dressed family approaches a small village church in an open carriage. Built along a shallow right to left diagonal, this serene scene of daily life in rural Holland encapsulates all the lyricism of Ruysdael's finest summer landscapes.

The mid-1640s were Ruysdael's most productive years. His palette became richer and more colourful and his interpretations of the surrounding landscape more complex. This may have been due in part to the influence of the Italianizing artists or, as is more likely, in response to the increasing popularity of the landscapes of his nephew, Jacob van Ruisdael, whose monumental skies and verdant landscapes would soon see him depose his uncle Salomon as the leading landscape painter in The Netherlands.

By adopting such a low viewpoint Ruysdael has placed enormous emphasis on the sky, to which he devotes well over three-quarters of the picture surface. Above the horizon the paint has been applied in thick, creamy brushstrokes and the smoke rising from the cottage chimney is nonchalantly conveyed by making circular motions with the end of the brush in the wet paint. The combination of such details with, for example, the minutely observed foliage on the trees and the silvery reflection of the sky in the foreground puddle, adds a pleasing narrative to this pastoral scene which can be considered amongst the artist's most successful, and indeed individual, works of the 1640s.

A variant of the present painting, also dated 1646, is today in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam.υ1

1. Inv. no. 2623; museum catalogue, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Old Paintings, Rotterdam 1972, p. 221, reproduced p. 57.