JAN JOSEFSZ. VAN GOYEN | View of a village with a large Gothic church

Breyer collection, Stuttgart, 18th century;

Zweibrücken Galerie, Zweibrücken, 1776, inv. no. 306;

Mannheim Galerie, Mannheim, 1793;

Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, 1799, inv. no. 4994;

Augsburg Museum, Augsburg, 1806, inv. no. 622, and by 1912, inv. no. 2622, whence sold by exchange to Plietzsch;

With Dr. E. Plietzsch, Berlin, 1937;

Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Sotheby’s, 11 December 1974, lot 101;

Carl Schünemann, Bremen, from whom acquired.

R. Marggraff, Katalog der k. Gemälde-Galerie in Augsburg, Munich 1869, pp. 38 and 181, cat. no. 100;

F. von Reber, Katalog der k. Gemälde-Galerie in Augsburg, Munich 1899 and 1905, p. 113, cat. no. 622;

F. von Reber, Katalog der k. Gemälde-Galerie in Augsburg, Munich 1912, p. 26, cat. no. 2622;

C. Hofstede de Groot, A catalogue raisonné..., vol. VIII, London 1927, p. 77, cat. no. 276;

R. Grosse, Die holländische Landschaftskunst 1600-1650, Stuttgart, Berlin and Leipzig 1925, p. 76, reproduced pl. 53;

H. Volhard, Die Grundtypen der Landschaftsbilder Jan van Goyen und ihre Entwicklung, doctoral diss., Halle-Wittenberg Univesity, Frankfurt 1927, pp. 143 and 185;

J. Havelaar, De Nederlandsche landschapskunst tot het einde der zeventiende eeuw, Amsterdam 1931, p. 138, reproduced;

H.-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen. Katalog der Gemälde, vol. II, Amsterdam 1973, p. 508, cat. no. G 1164, reproduced;

Raupp 2001, pp. 80–83, cat. no. 15, reproduced in colour;

Rotterdam 2008, p. 42, cat. no. 13, reproduced in colour.

Amsterdam, K.&V. Waterman, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656: conquest of space: paintings from museums and private collections, Spring 1981, unnumbered;

On loan, Münster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum, 1981–85;

Rotterdam 2008, no. 13.

The SØR Rusche Collection has been exhibited extensively over the last two decades. Please click here for further information.

This is one of Van Goyen's late works, painted just two years before his death. The thickly-applied brushwork used to describe the foliage and the rapid yet nuanced strokes that evoke the light and atmosphere of the cloudy day are typical of this period.

Until 1937, this painting was housed in a series of German museums that contained the Electoral and Royal collections, including the Bavarian State Gallery in Munich, where the entire collection of the Wittelsbach Elector of Bavaria, Karl Theodor von Pfalz-Sulzbach (1724–99), was brought in 1798–99 to form the core of what would later become the Alte Pinakothek. These institutions made a number of sales in the 1920s and 30s, usually by exchange.