A Canal by Moonlight

The provenance of this picture is particularly noteworthy. Désiré van den Schrieck was one of the most important nineteenth-century Belgian collectors of seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings. His private gallery, which he planned as a museum, was assembled over a period of 30 years and comprised more than 220 pictures. It was visited not only by the King of Belgium and other notables, but also by many of the leading painters of the day who made copies of his paintings. At the sale of his collection in 1861, the present picture was acquired by Louis Viardot who published a popular series of guidebooks to European museums and galleries and was also an authority on Spanish literature. The painting was owned subsequently by the famous Parisian collector, Maurice Kann, most of whose Dutch pictures were acquired en bloc in 1907 by the dealer, Joseph Duveen.