(Haarlem 1628/29–1682 Amsterdam)
A wooded landscape with a waterfall,
signed lower right: Ruisdael,
oil on canvas, 69.7 x 55.7 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris;
Collection of Christiaan Marie Cornelis Obreen (1842–1912), Rotterdam;
his sale, Frederick Muller, Amsterdam, 4 December 1912, lot 261;
Collection F. Lerdare, Lima, Peru;
with P. Cassirer and P. Graupe, Berlin, 1936;
with S. Nijstad, The Hague;
Collection of Sidney James van den Bergh (1898–1977), Wassenaar;
his sale, Sotheby’s, London, 11 March 1964, lot 63;
Collection of Anders Ruben Thorbjõrn Thustrup (1901–1979), Djorsholm, Stockholm;
with P. de Boer, Amsterdam, circa 1979–1980 (according to a label on the reverse);
with Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, 1980–1983;
Private collection, Germany

Literature:
Vier Generaties Nijstad: 1862-1962, Jubileum-Uitgave, Lochem-The Hague 1962, ill.;
S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael, A complete catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven-London 2001, p. 236, cat. no. 281, ill. p. 237

Slive compares the present painting with his no. 279, ‘A little waterfall in a landscape’ (private collection) which also relates to another composition formerly in the A. T. Thrustrup collection, Stockholm. He dates this group of paintings to the 1670s.

The present evocative depiction of swaying serpentine trees beside a gently churning waterfall exudes all the understated poetry so characteristic of van Ruisdael’s mature period. In particular, the handling of the evening half-light, from the gentle articulation of the clouds to the silvered bark of the birch trunks and the unseen sun’s reflection in the water’s surface all show the master at the height of his powers.

Although van Ruisdael is remembered as the foremost landscapist of the Dutch Golden Age, his choice Northern vistas may owe something to his contemporary, Allaert van Everdingen (1621–1675) whose studies ad vivum of Norwegian landscapes were both exotic and immediately influential to both artists’ Amsterdam milieu. Although van Ruisdael is known to have visited Germany, carefully observing nature in a series of drawings that he would work from in the studio to create his inimitable views, no trip to Scandinavia by the artist is recorded.

Slive notes that the current canvas formerly was recorded in the 1930s in Berlin as containing staffage in the form of two riders and another pair of travellers on foot. These were, however, shown to have been executed by a later hand, and were removed during restoration in the 1960s. Indeed, van Ruisdael’s masterful rendering of nature here provides narrative enough without the need for figures.