Aert van der Neer

Amsterdam, Fred. Muller & Co., 1906, no. 90;
From whom acquired by August Janssen, Amsterdam;
With Jacques Goudstikker, The Hague, 1919, no. 81;
Labouchère, 's-Graveland;
F.J.E. Horstmann;
His sale, Amsterdam, Fred. Muller & Co., 19-21 November 1929, lot 33;
With Dowdeswell, London.

Amsterdam, Frederik Muller, Tercentenaire de Rembrandt, 10 July -15 September 1906, no. 90 (with pendant);
The Hague, Pulchri Studio (Jacques Goudstikker), catalogue no. 13, November 1919, no. 81 (reproduced in the catalogue, with pendant as no. 80). 

C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. VII, London 1923, p. 419, no. 407;
W. Schulz, Aert van der Neer, Doornspijk 2002, pp. 358-9, cat. no. 873, reproduced fig. 178 (as present whereabouts unknown).

"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. There is an old supporting bar across the centre where horizontal cracks ran inwards for some distance from both sides in the past. One other brief crack runs in from the lower right side for a little over an inch. The back was also primed with red lead for additional stability, and the panel shows no sign of movement today. The old cracks in the centre did not meet and there is some now darkened old retouching to either side, with a few minute lost flakes in the cracks across the light cloud at left of centre, while in the centre to the right there is no crack or retouching. On the lower right side the short crack also has a little dark retouching, (as well as an old hair from the varnish brush) and there are occasional darkened touches around the cloud at the top left corner. This area is slightly thin and the warm colour of the wood is just visible. The men in the boat at lower right silhouetted against the water are also slightly thin, while the delicate details of the eel traps nearby are beautifully intact, as is the foreground elsewhere across to the cows beneath the trees on the left. The landscape on the left is in particularly fine condition, with remarkable finesse in the treatment of the village. 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."

For most of the 20th Century, this picture has been considered to be be a pendant to the following lot, and was so described by Wolfgang Schulz, but with a question mark.  In size and composition they correspond as pendants, but their horizon lines do not exactly correspond, and the combination of an evening and a nocturnal landscape would be a little unusual.

August Janssen or his heirs must have sold this and the following lot privately to Jacques Goudstikker.  His posthumous sale at Frederik Muller in Amsterdam on 12th March 1921 included a further work by Aert van der Neer.