Sotheby's Important Old Master Paintings and European Works of Art New York | 25 Jan 2007, 10:00 AM | N08282

LOT 329 PROPERTY OF THE TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE ACQUISITIONS FUND JACOB ISAACKSZ. VAN RUISDAEL 1628/9 - 1682 HAARLEM 1628/9 - 1682 AMSTERDAM WATERFALL IN A MOUNTAINOUS LANDSCAPE signed lower right JvRuisdael (JvR in monogram) oil on canvas 45 1/4 by 58 1/8 by 114.9 by 148 cm.

ESTIMATE 80,000-100,000 USD Lot Sold: 168,000 USD

PROVENANCE Vernon Harcourt, Nuneham Park, by 1857; Lewis Harcourt, Nuneham Park; Edward Dent; By whom sold, London, Christie's, March 14, 1930, lot 91, for 600 guineas to Asscher; With Asscher and Welker, London; With Howard Young, New York; Arthur J. Secor, by 1930, second president of the Toledo Museum of Art; By whom given to the Toledo Museum of Art in 1930 (Acc. no. 30.312).

EXHIBITED Montreal, Montreal Art Association, Five Centuries of Dutch Art, March 9 - April 9, 1944, no. 72; Fort Worth, The Fort Worth Art Center, Inaugural Exhibition, October 8-31, 1954, no.89.

LITERATURE G. Waagen, Art Treasures in Great Britain, London, 1854, supplement, p. 351, no. 2 (not p. 350, no. 1); C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith, London 1912, vol. IV, p. 88. cat. no. 267b; Art News, 29, 21, February 1931, p. 8 reproduced; Toledo Museum of Art, Catalogue of European Paintings, Toledo 1939, pp. 112-113 (as with figures by Wouwermans); W. Stechow, Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century, London 1968, pp. 7 and 146, fig. 3; The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo 1976, pp. 147-148, reproduced Plate 138 (as painted circa 1665); P.C. Sutton, Northern European Paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 1990, pp. 272-274, fig. 95- 3; P. Sutton, Dutch Art in America, Washington D.C. 1986, p. 346; S. Slive, , A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven 2001, p. 238, cat. no. 284, reproduced.

CATALOGUE NOTE A late work, this dramatic landscape may be dated to the early to mid-1670's, and, in its Scandinavian character, is reminiscient of the prototypes developed by (1621 - 1675), who traveled to and (see literature). The compositional scheme and treatment of the waterfall in the present painting is very close to those in another Waterfall in a Mountainous Landscape at the University of California Art Galleries, Los Angeles. For example, in the foreground of both landscapes, Ruisdael used the same device of a downed spruce to add a sense of depth and drama to the composition. Although there has been some debate as to who painted the figures at the right and left of the composition, they are most likely contemporary to Ruisdael's landscape.1 1 According to S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael, A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven 2001, p. 238, cat. no. 284, reproduced