River landscape with fishermen

Details

JAN VAN GOYEN (LEIDEN 1596-1656 THE HAGUE)
River landscape with fishermen
signed and dated 'J VGoyen. 1632' ('VG' linked, centre left, on the boat)
oil on canvas
44 5/8 x 70 5/8 in. (114 x 179.5 cm.)

Provenance

Maria Magdalena Sluypwijk, Countess von Moens (1710-1802); her sale (†), van der Schley et al, Amsterdam, 20 April [=1st day] 1803, lot 29 (280 florins to Christian Josi).
Private collection, traditionally identified as the Van Terburg family; their sale, Roos, Amsterdam, 16 July 1819, lot 63 (100 florins to De Vries).
The Hon. W.F.B. Massey-Mainwaring (1845-1907); Christie's, London, 23 May 1903, lot 70 (380 gns. to A. Wertheimer).
Lawrence Aldred Mervyn Dundas, 3rd Marquess of Zetland (1908-1989); Christie's, London, 27 April 1934, lot 116, (850 gns. to Speelman).
with D. Katz, Dieren, 1934.
A. Holle; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 23 June 1953, lot 4 (950,000 FF).
with D. Katz, Dieren, 1952-53.
Anonymous sale; Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, 12-16 June 1956, lot 1878.
J.G. Wurfbain, Kasteel de Geldersche Toren, Spankeren, 1958.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 23 March 1960, lot 112 (£2,200 to Gordon Schaeffer).
Anonymous sale; Paul Brandt, Amsterdam, 6 June 1961, lot 32 (33,000 florins).
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 2 July 1965, lot 135.
Anonymous sale; Koller, Zurich, 3 November 1965, lot 1235A.
Metzemaeker collection, Best, Holland, circa 1970.
Anonymous sale [Property of a Gentleman]; Sotheby's, London, 9 July 1975, lot 61.
Anonymous sale [Property from a Swiss Private Collection]; Sotheby's, London, 6 December 1995, lot 42, when acquired by the present owner.

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, VIII, 1927, p. 183, no. 711.
A. Dobrzycka, Jan van Goyen, Poznan, 1966, p. 94, no. 58.
H.-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656: Ein Oeuvreverzeichnis, Amsterdam, 1973, II, pp. 216 and 217, no. 447, illustrated, III, Doornspijk, 1987, p. 195, no. 447.

Exhibited

London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Loan exhibition of pictures by old masters on behalf of Lord Haig's Appeal for ex-service men, November-December 1922, no. 17 (loaned by The Marquess of Zetland).
The Hague, Kleykamp, 1934, no. 76.

Special notice

This lot is offered without reserve. This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Painted in 1632, the year in which Van Goyen moved from Leiden to the capital The Hague, this is one of the artist's largest pictures and a veritable statement of his ambition as a landscape painter in the early 1630’s. By this time Van Goyen had fully evolved his ‘tonal’ style, which relied on a limited palette and a harmonious, unified structure. This view of a calm river under a bright sky is an excellent example and its success is attested to by two smaller copies listed by Beck, one on panel, and one on canvas showing the composition in reverse (loc. cit). The painterly rendering of the three fishermen hauling in their nets is an idea that the artist probably first developed on paper. An early drawing in which they feature before a distant view of Leiden is in Rotterdam (Museum Boymans van Beuningen).

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