Salomon van Ruysdael Naarden 1600/3 - 1670 Haarlem

Possibly Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt ( 1714-1777);
George Simon Harcourt, 2nd Earl Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt (1736-1809);
William Harcourt, 3rd and last Earl Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt (1742/3-1830);
Thence via the marriage of his great aunt, Martha (1715-1794) to George Vernon, later Venables-Vernon, 1st Lord Vernon, Baron of Kinderton (1709/10-1780), to their second son, Edward Venables-Vernon (1757-1847), created Vernon Harcourt by Royal licence on inheriting the Harcourt Estates in 1830;
George Granville Vernon-Harcourt, later Harcourt of Nuneham Courtenay (1785-1861);
Rev. William Vernon-Harcourt, later Harcourt (1789-1871);
Edward William Harcourt of Nuneham Courtenay and Stanton Harcourt (1825-1891);
Aubrey Harcourt, of Nuneham Park and Stanton Harcourt (1852-1904): 
Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt (1827-1904);
Lewis Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt and Baron Nuneham of Nuneham-Courtenay (1863-1922);
William Edward Harcourt, 2nd Viscount Harcourt (1908-1979);
Thence by descent.

Description of Nuneham-Courtenay in the county of Oxford, 1797, p. 40, 'a landscape, with figures by Solomon Rysdael (sic)', in The Queen's dressing room;
Description of Nuneham-Courtenay in the county of Oxford, 1806, p. 30, 'a landscape, by Solomon Rysdael (sic)', in The Queen's dressing room;
E.W. Harcourt, ed., The Harcourt Papers, 1880-1905, vol. 3, p. 266, '123. A landscape with water, by Van Goyen; a nice picture...';
W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael, Berlin 1975, p. 135, no. 429. 

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine, bevelled oak panel with one central joint. This has been reglued and backed with a canvas strip. There is a very faint curve but no sign of flaking or other movement past or present. The joint has a narrow line of retouching along most of its length but with rather wider filling towards the left side. A certain amount of other retouching seems to have accreted around the joint on the left in the sky, with scarcely any in the tree. Much of this could possibly be largely cosmetic, even perhaps to some extent over old varnish without prior cleaning, although there are some patches also up near the top right edge and a wider patch at the middle of the left side. The characteristic texture of the original brushwork can be seen throughout however. In general the painting seems to be in quite beautiful condition, with the distant horizon especially finely intact. There is more old varnish over the wooded right side, where the cottages beneath the trees are freely sketched in with broadly hatched lines. There is slight wear in one or two of the figures in the boat but the landscape and water is beautifully unworn and intact overall. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

[introduction to go on spread before this lot]

The following three lots form part of the distinguished collection of paintings assembled in the mid-18^th Century by the noted English patron and collector, Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt (1714-1777) (Fig. 1).  The only son of the Hon. Simon Harcourt (1684-1720) of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, and his wife Elizabeth, granddaughter of the diarist John Evelyn, he succeeded to the family's estates and titles on the death of his grandfather, Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt (1661-1727), and shortly thereafter set out on an extensive Grand Tour, which was to last for four years.  He held a number posts in the royal household - even acting briefly as tutor to the future George III - and was created 1st Earl Harcourt by George II in 1749.  He reached the rank of general in the army and served as ambassador in Paris (1768-72) and lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1772-77).  His interests in the Arts were diverse: he was one of the founder members of the Dilettanti Society in 1732 and assembled a notable collection of pictures [1]. He commissioned portraits from Reynolds² and Knapton, was a patron and friend of Paul Sandby, and collected numerous Old Masters, including important works by Poussin: Moses purifying the Waters (now Baltimore, Museum of Art) and Mars and Venus (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts).  In 1756 he drew up plans for a Palladian villa to be built overlooking the Thames at Nuneham Courtenay near Oxford (see fig. 2).  The villa was designed and built by Stiff Leadbetter from 1756 to 1764 and much of the interior decoration was carried out by James 'Athenian' Stuart.  Harcourt died by falling into a well at Nuneham, from which he had been trying to save a favourite dog.  His eldest son, George Simon, 2nd Earl Harcourt, enlarged the family's collection and commissioned Lancelot 'Capability' Brown to remodel the House and Park (1781-82).  Waagen described his visit to Nuneham in 1856/7:

'Nuneham Park occupies a distinguished place among English country seats.  The position of the house, with the ground sloping from it on one side, has been judiciously chosen.  The flower-beds next the house are beautifully laid out, richly filled, and excellently kept.  The pleasure-grounds, with a view of Oxford, and picturesque groups of trees, have a charming effect.  The apartments in which the pictures are distributed are of agreeable proportions, and several of them stately in size.  The pictures consist chiefly of the Netherlandish, French and English schools, including also specimens of Italian, Spanish and German masters.  Many of them are of value, and some of remarkable merit'.[3]

Describing the Drawing-Room ('on the walls of this agreeably-proportioned apartment, which are hung with crimson silk, the pictures have a beautiful effect') Waagen noted, amongst other paintings, the two Poussins from the collection as well as the Ruisdael (lot 27) and the Van de Velde (lot 28).[4]

Shortly after World War II, the Harcourt family sold the Nuneham estate to the University of Oxford.  A large part of the picture collection (124 paintings) was dispersed in a sale at Christie's, London, on 11 June 1948.

1.   D. Moore-Gwyn, in J. Turner, ed., The Dictionary of Art, London 1996, vol. 14, pp. 163-64.
2.  E.K. Waterhouse, Reynolds, 1941, p. 39, reproduced plate 20a.
3  G.F. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London 1857, p. 347.
4. G.F. Waagen, op. cit., pp. 349-350.

This is a characteristic work of the early to mid-1640s.  The compositional type, with the bank of the river receding on a diagonal towards the left, tall trees on the far bank to the right and a number of small craft seen from the centre foreground to the far left distance, can be found in other works by the artist of this date, for example in the River Landscape dated 1644, sold in these Rooms, 6 December 2006, lot 18.  Here, as in the present picture, the darkened form of the ferry serves as a repoussoir device, emphasising the spatial depth of the painting.  

The painting is almost certainly the one described in the 1797 and 1806 editions of the Description of Nuneham-Courtenay..., as hanging in the Queen's Dressing room (see Literature).  It must subsequently have mistakenly  been re-attributed to Van Goyen for it appears described as such in the late 19th century in The Harcourt Papers, its identification confirmed by the attribution to Van Goyen brushed on the reverse of the frame and an inventory number tallying with that in the Harcourt inventory.

Stechow tentatively identified this picture with a painting exhibited in Leeds in 1868, no 784, as by Jan van Goyen, lent by Mrs Danby Vernon Harcourt.  Anne Danby's first husband, William Danby of Swinton Park, near Masham in Yorkshire, died in 1833 and she remarried, in 1838, Admiral Octavius Vernon Harcourt (1793-1863, 8th son of Dr. Edward Vernon Harcourt, Archbishop of York).  On her death in 1879, her Yorkshire estates were devised on George Danby, 5th son of Sir Robert Affleck, Bt., who sold the Swinton Estate in 1882 to Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Baron Masham of Swinton (1815-1906).  No pictues from the Danby collection, therefore, passed back into the Harcourt family, and the 'Van Goyen' referred to by Stechow is certainly not the present painting.