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Lot Essay
One of the greatest artists of the Dutch seventeenth century, Ruysdael was one of the leading figures of the tonal school of landscape painting associated primarily with Haarlem, his home from circa 1617. Influenced, like his contemparary Van Goyen, by the developments in landscape associated in particular with the work of Pieter Molyn, Ruysdael quickly gained a name for himself as a painter of landscapes that presented the native Dutch landscape in an unforced, naturalistic style.
The present work is typical for Ruysdael's oeuvre of the early 1640s. The composition is still constructed from his favoured wedge-shaped land-mass, leading the viewer's eye into the distance. The landscape has begun to open up, however, with a broader expanse of sky and water that looks forward to his later work. His palette remains restricted to a deliberately sparse range of tones, but is coloured by a golden light that catches of the sides of the buildings and that reappears in other works of the period (for example the Landscape with fishermen casting their nets, the ruins of a castle beyond sold, Sotheby's, New York, 12 January 1989, lot 53).
The distinctive towers on the far bank of the river recur in a later work by the artist, dated 1661, recorded by Stechow (op. cit., p. 151, no. 532, fig. 63).
The present work is typical for Ruysdael's oeuvre of the early 1640s. The composition is still constructed from his favoured wedge-shaped land-mass, leading the viewer's eye into the distance. The landscape has begun to open up, however, with a broader expanse of sky and water that looks forward to his later work. His palette remains restricted to a deliberately sparse range of tones, but is coloured by a golden light that catches of the sides of the buildings and that reappears in other works of the period (for example the Landscape with fishermen casting their nets, the ruins of a castle beyond sold, Sotheby's, New York, 12 January 1989, lot 53).
The distinctive towers on the far bank of the river recur in a later work by the artist, dated 1661, recorded by Stechow (op. cit., p. 151, no. 532, fig. 63).