The present lot is one out of a series of five paintings with moonlit landscapes by Blaricum, all executed around 1910-1912. The subject had been relatively popular in the first decenium of the 20th Century among Dutch painters; Piet Mondriaan f.e. used it in a series of landscape paintings from 1906/1907. Sluijters first versions, dated 1910, were executed in a very expressive, strong luminist manner. The artist later recalled (Loosjes-Terpstra Moderne Kunst in Nederland 1900-1914, Utrecht 1959, p. 261) how he often during his work looked behind the curtains off his room to see the nightly landscape outside his house in Laren. In the beginning of 1911 Sluijters moved to Amsterdam and gradually turned away from luminism.
This change was already clearly visible in the second version (50.5 x 71.5 cm), dated 1911, now in the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague and in the third version (32 x 50 cm, whereabouts unknown). The present lot resembles very much this last version in size and in compostion although in this version all vertical elements are eliminated.
In the last and largest version, however, nearly all luminist traces have disappeared. The reflection of the moon and the houses form almost abstract shapes very much like Mondriaan's pictures of seascapes after sunset (circa 1909).
The final version from this series was sold at Christie's Amsterdam (24 May 1989, lot 187) for Hfl 1.092.500,=, a record price for the artist.

See colour illustration