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Lot Essay
This beautifully preserved, atmospheric landscape by Jacob van Ruisdael dates to 1648, the same year the artist joined the prestigious Haarlem painters' Guild of Saint Luke. Ruisdael's earliest dated works of just two years before - painted when he was only about seventeen-years- old - reveal an already mature artist whose instinct for compositional harmony, restrained palette and romantic mood pervades the views he made in and around Haarlem in this early period. Ruisdael may have trained with his father, Isaack van Ruisdael (1599-1677) or with his uncle, the renowned painter Salomon van Ruisdael (1602-1670), whose tonal landscapes were no doubt an important influence on the young artist. This work, however, with its "transparent and fine filigree treatment of the trees [and] lighter, more tender palette" reveals the influence of the painter Cornelis Vroom (1591-1661), who is credited with bringing some of these naturalistic techniques to Haarlem landscape painting in the 1630s, almost a decade before (S. Slive, loc. cit.).
The present panel depicts the location visible in another early vista by Ruisdael, dated 1647 (private collection, Westphalia; S. Slive, op. cit., no. 627), with which it shares its uneven dune along a sandy spit of land, verdant trees silhouetted against a windswept sky, and choppy grey-blue waters. Both pictures were probably inspired by the picturesque shoreline of Zuider Zee, southeast of Amsterdam, and are the only surviving painted depictions of this area by the artist. As Peter Sutton observes, these number among Ruisdael's "most beautiful and subtle works and had a lasting influence in the history of art" (loc. cit.). A highly finished drawing of 1648 by Ruisdael, showing The shore of Zuider Zee with three anglers and a view of the ruined church at Muiderberg and Naarden (British Museum, London, inv. 1895.9.15.1299), also relates to the present picture and reveals the same accuracy and precision with which the painter observed the flora and fauna around him. Peter Ashton, who has devoted a serious study to the trees and shrubbery in Ruisdael's paintings, has in fact noted that in the present work "Ruisdael seems to have demonstrated exceptional mastery of his local flora". At lower right, for example, the artist included a depiction of the flowering viburnum lantana, or wayfaring tree. Though it did not escape Ruisdael's discerning eye, this local Haarlem plant was overlooked by the great botanist George Clifford, who compiled his Hortus Cliffortianus in 1737 only a few miles away but did not realize the species was indigenous to the Netherlands (P. Ashton et al., "Jacob van Ruisdael's Trees", Arnoldia, XLII, no. I, Winter 1982, p. 20).
The present panel depicts the location visible in another early vista by Ruisdael, dated 1647 (private collection, Westphalia; S. Slive, op. cit., no. 627), with which it shares its uneven dune along a sandy spit of land, verdant trees silhouetted against a windswept sky, and choppy grey-blue waters. Both pictures were probably inspired by the picturesque shoreline of Zuider Zee, southeast of Amsterdam, and are the only surviving painted depictions of this area by the artist. As Peter Sutton observes, these number among Ruisdael's "most beautiful and subtle works and had a lasting influence in the history of art" (loc. cit.). A highly finished drawing of 1648 by Ruisdael, showing The shore of Zuider Zee with three anglers and a view of the ruined church at Muiderberg and Naarden (British Museum, London, inv. 1895.9.15.1299), also relates to the present picture and reveals the same accuracy and precision with which the painter observed the flora and fauna around him. Peter Ashton, who has devoted a serious study to the trees and shrubbery in Ruisdael's paintings, has in fact noted that in the present work "Ruisdael seems to have demonstrated exceptional mastery of his local flora". At lower right, for example, the artist included a depiction of the flowering viburnum lantana, or wayfaring tree. Though it did not escape Ruisdael's discerning eye, this local Haarlem plant was overlooked by the great botanist George Clifford, who compiled his Hortus Cliffortianus in 1737 only a few miles away but did not realize the species was indigenous to the Netherlands (P. Ashton et al., "Jacob van Ruisdael's Trees", Arnoldia, XLII, no. I, Winter 1982, p. 20).