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River Landscape with a Ferry
Salomon van Ruysdael (Dutch, 1600/1603–1670)
1649
Medium/Technique
Oil on panel
Dimensions
Overall: 91 × 126 cm (35 13/16 × 49 5/8 in.)
Framed: 116.5 × 152 cm (45 7/8 × 59 13/16 in.)
Framed: 116.5 × 152 cm (45 7/8 × 59 13/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art
Accession Number2020.266
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
This gentle waterscape contrasts with the windy painting by Salomon’s nephew, Jacob, to your right, above the chest. Here, water neither challenges nor threatens—instead, it serves. A small ferry carries peasants, nobles, and cattle alike on a short trip across a river. The scene is so peaceful that the brown cow rubs its neck against the side of the boat while the black one takes a drink. This painting, very large for Ruysdael, is in extraordinarily good condition. It captures perfectly the clarity and calm for which he was renowned. Look for the ripples left in the wake of the passing sailboats.
Signed
traces of signature on boat
ProvenanceBefore 1934, Somerset E. D. Webb (b. 1867 – d. 1944), Hengherst House, Woodchurch, Kent. 1934, W. E. Duits, Ltd., London [see note 1]; 1934, sold by Duits to Kunsthandel Gebroeders Douwes, Amsterdam [see note 2]; sold by Douwes to a private collection, England; until 1983, by descent within the family to the Trustees of the Mendel Furniture Settlment [see note 3]; November 30, 1983, Trustees of the Mendel Furniture Settlement sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, lot 89. Edward Speelman, London. By 1985, Charles C. Cunningham, Boston. 1989, Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht and London. 1989, Private collection, London and Brussels. 2006, sold by Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht, to Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo, Marblehead, MA [see note 4]; 2020, gift of Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo to the MFA. (Accession Date: October 7, 2020)
NOTES:
[1] According to handwritten notes on the Duits stock card (Duits Records, Box 36, Getty Research Institute).
[2] Kunsthandel van Gebroeders Douwes, Tentoonstelling van Oude Schilderijen (Amsterdam, 1934), cat. no. 28.
[3] According to the 1983 Sotheby Parke Bernet catalogue, the painting was sold by Douwes to the consigner’s father.
[4] Provenance after 1983 is taken from Frederik Duparc, Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Collection of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo (New Haven, 2011), pp. 267-269, cat. no. 53.
NOTES:
[1] According to handwritten notes on the Duits stock card (Duits Records, Box 36, Getty Research Institute).
[2] Kunsthandel van Gebroeders Douwes, Tentoonstelling van Oude Schilderijen (Amsterdam, 1934), cat. no. 28.
[3] According to the 1983 Sotheby Parke Bernet catalogue, the painting was sold by Douwes to the consigner’s father.
[4] Provenance after 1983 is taken from Frederik Duparc, Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Collection of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo (New Haven, 2011), pp. 267-269, cat. no. 53.