Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael

This atmospheric view of the Hofvijver in The Hague is one of a very small number of town views that Jacob van Ruisdael painted over the course of his long and productive career. Although several Dutch towns – Haarlem in particular – appear in the backgrounds of the artist’s characteristic panoramic landscapes, hardly a dozen of the 694 paintings that Seymour Slive listed in his catalogue raisonné of Ruisdael’s works can be considered true townscapes, and of those, all except this one depict Amsterdam, where the artist lived and worked for much of his professional career. All the same, Slive wryly observed that since Ruisdael spent some 25 years in Amsterdam, yet painted fewer than a dozen views of the city, ‘it is safe to say that painting them was not his favourite occupation’.¹ Even less, it would seem, painting views of The Hague. 

The city was, though, a highly symbolic subject for Dutch artists, as the seat of both the national government and the royal family, and images of the The Hague’s great central lake, seen from exactly this viewpoint on the Buitenhof, were produced in some numbers from the late 16^th century on. Typically, these views extended further to the right to show the Binnenhof (the grand range of royal and public buildings that border the water to that side), and many, such as Hans Bol’s magnificent gouache of 1589,² incorporate processions of courtly figures in the foreground, but Ruisdael has here chosen a less didactic representation of this famous location, with only the Mauritshuis, built by Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post between 1633 and 1644, providing a visual reference to The Hague’s role in national life.  

The existence of views of The Hague attributed to Ruisdael (in once case with figures attributed to Adriaen van de Velde) is recorded in several late 18^th-century sale catalogues,³ but it is not possible to establish whether those sale references relate to the canvas under discussion here, to the weaker variant in the collection of the Mauritshuis,⁴ or to further versions of the composition, now unknown.

Seymour Slive only knew the present work from old, pre-war photographs, on the basis of which he rejected the attribution to Ruisdael, writing that a better version must exist, or have existed. The re-emergence of the painting itself has, however, revealed that the quality is very much better than might have been suggested by the old photographs, which appear to show the painting in a dirty state that makes judgement of quality challenging. Following a recent light cleaning by Simon Folkes, much more of the original handling became visible, and although certain areas remain somewhat thin, the quality of the image as a whole is convincing, as are many passages and details, notably the sky.⁵ Various scholars, including Arthur Wheelock, have seen the painting in the original, and have confirmed that they consider it to be a fully autograph, late work by the artist.

As regards dating, comparisons with Ruisdael’s other known town views suggests that this painting was executed no earlier than circa 1675. Perhaps most comparable of all in terms of style is the Panoramic view of the Amstel, in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in which the clouds and trees in particular are very similarly painted, and the overall mood of the image is also rather reflective. In the centre of the Fitzwilliam composition, the Portuguese Synagogue, consecrated in 1675, is prominently visible, providing a terminus post quem for the painting’s execution.⁶ Also close in style, particularly in the handling of some of the figures, is the View of the Damrak, in the Frick Collection, New York, which Slive dates to around the same moment.⁷ Likewise, the schematic yet effective rendering of the building of the Mauritshuis has parallels in another late work, the Landscape with a Country House, in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.⁸

Even though it remains unclear why, or for whom, Ruisdael chose, so late in his career, to paint this unique view of The Hague, its reappearance is a significant addition to our understanding of the artist’s late style and interests.

¹ Slive 2001, p. 11

² Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst. See A. van Suchtelen and A.K. Wheelock Jr., Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age, exh. cat., The Hague, Mauritshuis, and Washington, National Gallery of Art, 2008–9, pp. 96, 98, reproduced fig. 13.2  

³ Sale, Amsterdam, 15 April 1739, lot 75; sale, Paris, Paillet, 20 March 1787, lot 126 (51 x 61 cm.); Duc de Chabot sale, Paris, Lebrun, 10 December 1787, lot 110, supplement (56 x 74 cm.); sale Paris, Paillet, 18 December 1787, lot 10 (figures by Philips Wouwermans, 56 x 74 cm.); sale Paris, Marin/Lebrun, 22 March 1790, lot 140 (figures by Adriaen van de Velde, 48 x 63.5 cm.).

⁴ Slive 2001, p. 621, no. dub21a.

⁵ His report on the work undertaken is available on request.

⁶ Slive 2001, no. 3.

⁷ Slive 2001, no. 7.

⁸ Slive 2001, no. 588.