Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael

C.T. Tower, London, by 1837;
Peter Claes, London;
With Alfred Brod, London, February - March 1957;
With P. de Boer, Amsterdam, Summer 1957 (bears his label with stock number on the reverse);
J.C.H. Heldring, Oosterbeek, by 1958;
By whose Executors sold, London, Sotheby's, 27 March 1963, lot 16, for £5,500, to Dr. H. Girardet;
Herbert Girardet, Kettwig (1910-1972);
Thence by descent.

London, British Institution, 1837, (lent by C.T. Tower);
London, Alfred Brod, February - March 1957 (in the catalogue as no. 27, reproduced);
Amsterdam, P. de Boer, Summer exhibition, 1957;
Delft, Stedelijk Museum 'Het Prinzenhof', Oude Kunst – en Antiekbeurs, September 1958;
Arnhem, Gemeentemuseum, Collectie J.C.H. Heldring, 1958, no. 24a;
Utrecht, Utrechts Museum, Collectie J.C.H. Heldring, 1960, no. 29;
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 24 January - 30 March 1970; Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 24 April - 7 June 1970, Sammlung Herbert Girardet. Holländische und flämische Meister, no. 43.

A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions 1813-1912, London 1914, p. 1177 (either no. 71: 'Landscape, Early' or no. 109: 'Woody Landscape', both lent by C.T. Tower);
J. Smith, Supplement to the Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 9, London 1942, p. 693, no. 36;
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. IV, London 1912, p. 281, no. 912;
Collectie J.C.H. Heldring, exhibition catalogue, Arnhem, Gemeentemuseum, 1958, no. 24a, reproduced fig. 44;
Collectie J.C.H. Heldring, exhibition catalogue, Utrecht, Utrechts Museum, 1960, no. 29, reproduced fig. 14;
H. Vey, Sammlung Herbert Girardet. Holländische und flämische Meister, exhibition catalogue, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 24 January - 30 March 1970; and Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 24 April - 7 June 1970, (unpaginated), cat. no. 43, reproduced;
S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael. A complete Catalogue of His Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven & London  2001, p. 424, cat. no. 601, reproduced.

"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 small fine bevelled oak panel, which is perfectly flat and shows no sign of ever having moved. The paint surface is magnificently intact generally, with lovely detail unworn. There is an old varnish and no restoration apart from some strengthening to a band of thinner paint down the upper right edge in the sky, with a few little old touches just further into the cloud, and two little lines along the grain in the patch of bluer sky lower down between the trees. It is rare to find all the darker foliage perfectly intact with its rich lightly impasted brushwork unworn. 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."

Although the date of 1648 noted in the early literature can no longer be found, this is a highly characteristic early work by Jacob van Ruisdael, and as Seymour Slive noted, is consistent with Ruisdael's style of circa 1648.¹  In this and the preceding year, Ruisdael painted a number of small-scale works on panel depicting mostly small trees and shrubs growing in the poor soil of the dunes, revealed by patches of sand in the foreground.   Often, as here, these are composed with ground rising to the left and receding to the distance on the right.  One such work, directly comparable to the present picture, signed and dated 1647, was sold in these Rooms, 5 December 2007, lot 37 (Fig. 1).²  By 1649 Ruisdael's style was evolving towards more extensive open landscapes, such as the famous picture from that year in Edinburgh, Torrie Collection.³ 

In the last fifty years, this work has belonged to two highly distinguished collections of Dutch pictures.  For J.C.H. Heldring it was a late purchase, made barely five years before his death.  The catalogue of his collection, published in 1955, and the sale at Sotheby's in 1963, reveal him to have been a collector of Dutch and Flemish pictures of breadth and discernment.⁴  He liked genre pictures, winter and summer landscapes and architectural paintings, including two by Saenredam.  He owned several Ruisdaels, including a winter landscape, as well as an early Rembrandt, and lot one in the posthumous sale of his collection at Sotheby's was the famous picture of tortoises now in the Mauritshuis, often attributed to Albert Eeckhout.

Herbert Girardet (1910-1972) (see also the following lot in this sale) was a printer and publisher from the Rhineland, who assembled an equally impressive collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings and drawings, as Horst Vey's catalogue of the exhibition of the collection in 1970 reveals.⁵  He started collecting in 1958, and his first purchase was another Ruisdael, a Waterfall.  He bought this Ruisdael in Heldring's sale at Sotheby's in 1963. 

1.  See Slive, under Literature, 2001.
2.  Slive, op. cit., pp. 421-2, no. 597, reproduced.
3.  Slive, ibid., pp. 365-6, no. 496, reproduced.
4.  See D. Hannema, Catalogue Raisonné of the Pictures in the Collection of J.C.H. Heldring, Rotterdam 1955.
5.  See Vey, under literature, 1970.