A moonlit river landscape with figures on the bank and a town beyond

By 1640, Aert van der Neer was established as a landscape painter, focusing on just a few subjects: winter scenes, snowstorms and nocturnes, particularly moonlit river scenes. This painting follows his characteristic approach to composing landscapes with a slightly elevated vantage point, a path stretching across the foreground populated with figures, far riverbanks dotted with architecture, and a river receding into the distance. Wolfgang Shulz lists this work among a number of similar moonlit landscapes and notes one copy of the present work (sold Anonymous sale, Rudolf Lepke, Berlin, 20 March 1900, lot 40). Van der Neer's mastery of reflected moonlight on the clouds, water and riverbanks, along with his use of a limited tonal palette of cool blues, browns, and a silvery white moonlight, give a sense of depth and convey the atmospheric effects of night falling.

This painting is first recorded in an 1883 sale of works belonging to the celebrated French collector Baron Étienne-Edmond Martin de Beurnonville (see Provenance). His collection included more than 1,000 paintings, drawings and sculpture, with works by Rembrandt van Rijn, Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Meindert Hobbema, and Salomon van Ruysdael, many of which are now in public collections.