Follower of Jacob van Ruisdael | Nachfolger von Jacob van Ruisdael

Joseph Neeld (1789–1856), Grittleton House, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, by 1854;

Thence by inheritance to his brother, Sir John Neeld, 1st Baronet (1805–1891);

Thence by descent to his son, Sir Algernon William Neeld, 2nd Baronet (1846–1900);

Thence by inheritance to his brother, Sir Audley Neelt, 3rd Baronet (1849–1941);

Thence by inheritance to Lionel William Neeld, Esq., Grittleton House, near Chippenham, Wiltshire;

By whom sold, London, Christie's, 9 June 1944, lot 26 (as Jacob van Ruisdael);

With Agnews, London, November–December 1944;

Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Sotheby's, 6 December 1967, lot 91, to Hofflander;

Anonymous sale, Munich, Hampel, 5 July 2018, lot 527 (as Jacob van Ruisdael);

Where acquired.

G. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London 1854, vol. II, p. 247 (as by Jacob van Ruisdael with figures by Adriaen van de Velde);

C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII Jahrhunderts, vol. IV, Esslingen 1911, p. 275, no. 923 (as Jacob van Ruisdael);

C. Hofstede de Groot, 'De nieuwe catalogus van het Mauritshuis', in Bulletin van den Nederlandschen Oudheidkundigen Bond, 7, 1914, p. 80 (as probably an old copy after the Mauritshuis picture);

J. Rosenberg, Jacob van Ruisdael, Berlin 1928, no. 566 (as the same subject as the Mauritshuis picture and related to another painting in Williamstown, but considers the prime version to be Jacob van Ruisdael Beachscape in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg);

W. Stechow, Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century, London 1968, p. 106 (all three versions as by Jacob van Ruisdael);

S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings, and Etchings, New Haven and London 2001, pp. 444–45, under cat. no. 633, and pp. 664–65, cat. no. dub145a (as unidentified artist, under section of 'dubious and wrongly attributed paintings').

Compositionally, this beach scene with a view of dunes closely relates to two other paintings: one in the Mauritshuis¹ and one in the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Williamstown.² Historically, these three paintings had been given to the hand of Jacob van Ruisdael.³ In his catalogue raisonné on the artist, however, Professor Seymour Slive more recently published all three as variants by unidentified artists who were inspired by Ruisdael’s signed canvas today in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg,⁴ or a lost but autograph second version of that canvas.⁵  

¹ Inv. no. 154, oil on canvas, 53 x 64.5 cm.

² Inv. no. 1955.851, oil on canvas, 40.1 x 61 cm.

³ See, for example, Hofstede de Groot 1911 and Stechow 1968.

⁴ Inv. no. ГЭ-5616, oil on canvas, 52 x 68 cm.

⁵ Slive 2001, pp. 444–45, under cat. 633.