The present lot is one of three views of the ruin of Kostverloren by Van Kessel; one of which is in the Szépmüveészeti Museum, Budapest (Davies, op.cit., no. 40) and the third was formerly in the Gräbewitz Collection, Solingen (Davies, op.cit., no. 41). The castle was built around 1500. After the fire around 1650 Jacob van Ruisdael visited the site repeatedly and recorded its ruined state in numerous drawings. As Slive pointed out (op.cit., p. 138), Van Kessel depended on Van Ruisdaels firsthand depictions of the ruin, as he himself was not yet active as an artist before the reconstruction of the Manor in 1658. Van Kessel therefore copied one of Van Ruisdael's drawings of the subject (respectively Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam and Teylers Museum, Haarlem) and used it as a point of departure for his versions in oil. The close-up view of the tower and the vertical format of the present lot are of his own invention. That Van Kessel also visited Kostverloren himself, is proved by several drawings of the Manor in its restored state (o.a. Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Davies, op.cit., nos. d20 and d21)

See colour illustration