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Lot Essay
The present composition exemplifies the tonal style that Jan van Goyen and his colleagues in Haarlem developed from the 1630s onwards. With an almost monochrome palette, a composition based around a low horizon and with depth defined through carefully chosen areas of light and dark, the artist brilliantly depicts the broad, open landscape of Holland, dominated by water and sky. The brown tonality, permeated through the picture by the deliberate partial exposure of the panel, helps to create the limpid atmosphere that imbues so many of Van Goyen's works.
The 'Oude Wachthuis' on the Kil near Dordrecht was constructed as a tollhouse in the early 17th Century. The artist must have passed the wooden building on his way back from a trip to Antwerp and Brussels in 1648. On the occasion, he made a little drawing of it in his sketchbook (fig. 1) which is preserved in the Kupferstickabinett in Dresden (see H.- U. Beck, op. cit., I, p. 278, no. 846/71). And after stopping at the 'Oude Wachthuis', he drew its surroundings on the same sheet (upper part). The details of this second sketch can be observed in the background of the painting; the two houses in the centre, the pole and Grote Kerk of Dordrecht to the right (see C. Vogelaar, e.a. Jan van Goyen, Zwolle and Leiden, 1996, p. 140, cat. 49). The motive of the 'Oude Wachthuis' appears in a number of other paintings by Van Goyen as well, for instance in a work an anonymous private collection and one in the Frank C. Bennett collection, London (see H.-U. Beck, op. cit., II, p. 258, no. 558A and p. 268, no. 586).
The 'Oude Wachthuis' on the Kil near Dordrecht was constructed as a tollhouse in the early 17th Century. The artist must have passed the wooden building on his way back from a trip to Antwerp and Brussels in 1648. On the occasion, he made a little drawing of it in his sketchbook (fig. 1) which is preserved in the Kupferstickabinett in Dresden (see H.- U. Beck, op. cit., I, p. 278, no. 846/71). And after stopping at the 'Oude Wachthuis', he drew its surroundings on the same sheet (upper part). The details of this second sketch can be observed in the background of the painting; the two houses in the centre, the pole and Grote Kerk of Dordrecht to the right (see C. Vogelaar, e.a. Jan van Goyen, Zwolle and Leiden, 1996, p. 140, cat. 49). The motive of the 'Oude Wachthuis' appears in a number of other paintings by Van Goyen as well, for instance in a work an anonymous private collection and one in the Frank C. Bennett collection, London (see H.-U. Beck, op. cit., II, p. 258, no. 558A and p. 268, no. 586).