EMANUEL MURANT | VILLAGE LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES BESIDE A RIVER, A TREE SILHOUETTED AGAINST THE SKY

Mrs. Borough, London;

With Julius Böhler, November – December 1960 (when advertised in Pantheon);

With Colnaghi, London, 1964;

With P. de Boer, Amsterdam, 1969;

With Galerie Kurt J. Müllenmeister, Solingen, 1969;

Carl Schünemann, Bremen, 1974;

From whom acquired in 1975.

K.J. Müllenmeister, Meer und Land im Licht des 17. Jahrhunderts. Seestücke und Flußlandschaften niederländischer Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts in privaten Sammlungen, vol. I, Bremen 1973, p. 150, reproduced;

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 3, Landschaften und Seestücke, Münster/Hamburg/London 2001, pp. 188–91, cat. no. 47, reproduced in colour;

W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M. J. Bok et al., At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle 2008, p. 77, cat. no. 62, reproduced in colour.

London, Colnaghi, Paintings by old masters, 28 April – 22 May 1964, no. 19;

Amsterdam, P. de Boer, Catalogue of Old Pictures, Winter 1969 – 14 June 1970, no. 30;

Munich, West German Art Fair, 1969;

Solingen, Galerie Müllenmeister, Gemälde und Zeichnungen alter Meister. Spezialgebiet: Niederländische & Vlämische Meister des 17. Jahrhunderts, Collection ‘69/‘70, 1969 – 1970, no. 14;

Münster, Landesmuseum, on loan, 1981–85;

Rotterdam, Kunsthal, At Home in the Golden Age, 9 February – 18 May 2008, no. 62.

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

Little is known of Emanuel Murant’s life, though the Dutch biographer Arnold Houbraken states that he was a pupil of Philips Wouwerman in Haarlem, and it is also thought that he knew Jan van der Heyden and Jan van de Cappelle. Murant specialised in village scenes and ruined farm buildings, executed with minute accuracy - a trait that may have developed through friendship with Van der Heyden. Indeed, Houbraken writes that one can 'count the stones of the masonry' ('dat men de steenen van 't muurwerk konde tellen') in Murant's paintings - certainly true of the building in the present work, which rewards close scrutiny. The composition of this painting is particularly striking in the stark silhouette of the tree, right, meaning that the impact of this image is as powerful from afar as it is close to. 

Another painting in the SØR Rusche Collection, to be offered in September, forms a panoramic river landscape together with this work.