SALOMON VAN RUYSDAEL River landscape with cows and sailing boats. 1653.

SALOMON VAN RUYSDAEL

(Naarden circa 1600–1670 Haarlem)
River landscape with cows and sailing boats. 1653.
Oil on panel.
Monogrammed and dated lower left: SVR / 1653.
39.8 × 59.5 cm.

Provenance:
- Etienne-Edmond-Martin, Baron de Beurnonville collection (1825–1906), Paris.
- Auction Pillet, Paris, 9–16 May 1881, lot 462 (dated 1651).
- With Franz Kleinberger, Paris/New York.
- August Cornelius de Ridder collection (1837–1911), Villa Schönberg, Kronberg, circa 1910.
- By inheritance to André de Ridder (1868–1921).
- Auction Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 2 June 1924, lot 65 (dated 1657).
- Dr Anton Frederik Philips (1874–1951) and Anna Philips-de Jongh (1878–1970) collection, Eindhoven, circa 1928.
- By inheritance to their daughter Henriëtte Anna Philips-Van Riemsdijk (1906–2007).
- Auction Christie's, London, 6 December 2007, lot 12.
- European private collection.

Exhibited:
New York 1913, A. Ridder Collection, Franz Kleinberger, 24 November–15 December 1913.

Literature:
- Wilhelm von Bode: Die Gemäldegalerie des Weiland Herrn A. de Ridder in seiner Villa zu Schönberg bei Cronberg im Taunus, Berlin 1910, p. 16, no. 52 (with ill.).
- Wilhelm Bode: Catalogue of the A. de Ridder Collection exhibited at the F. Kleinberger Gallery in New York, New York 1913, pp. 22 and 58, no. 52.
- Wolfgang Stechow: Salomon van Ruysdael. Eine Einführung in seine Kunst. Mit kritischem Katalog der Gemälde, Berlin 1938, p. 130, cat. nos. 523 and 525 (2nd edition, Berlin 1975, p. 150, cat. nos. 523 and 525).

This magnificent landscape by Salomon van Ruysdael presents an idealised, almost Arcadian conception of the Dutch countryside and exemplifies the type of image described by the American art historian Walter S. Gibson as the 'rustic landscape' (see Pleasant Places: The Rustic Landscape from Bruegel to Ruisdael, Berkeley 2000). Its origins reach back to the final quarter of the 16th century and are rooted in the work of Antwerp artists such as Hieronymus Cock (1518–1570) and Pieter Bruegel the Elder (circa 1525–1569). The genre did not reach its true flourishing, however, until the first half of the 17th century through Dutch landscape painters such as Jan van Goyen (1596–1656), Pieter de Molijn (1595–1661) and Salomon van Ruysdael, the three most important Dutch landscape painters of the period. Gibson uses the term to describe landscapes with rural, familiar and deliberately unheroic motifs of everyday life (see ibid., p. XXIV).

Salomon van Ruysdael was born Salomon de Goyer (or Gooyer) in Naarden in Gooiland. He later adopted the name Van Ruysdael, as did his brother Isaack (1599–1677), probably in reference to Ruijschdaal Castle near their father's place of residence. He was also the uncle of the landscape painter Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael (1628–1682). Nothing is known of Salomon's artistic training. In 1623 he was admitted to the Guild of Saint Luke in Haarlem, and his earliest dated painting is from 1626.

In contrast to lot 3032, a river landscape by Jan van Goyen with an impressive storm scene, or lot 3036, a landscape by Jacob van Ruisdael characterised by great expressiveness, Salomon van Ruysdael favoured an idealised conception of the river landscape. During the 1640s and 1650s he produced numerous works in which domestic animals, particularly cows, play a central role. A painting of 1646 from the former Count von Finkenstein collection, for example, shows a herd beside a body of water (see RKD Images, no. 216808). Another work dated 1650, auctioned at Koller on 19 June 2020 (Auction A192, lot 3045), shows cattle in a river and their herdsman in a landscape with Egmond Abbey in the background. Like the present painting, these compositions convey a sense of harmony and the close relationship between man and nature. The artist depicts a relaxed moment in which the animals, unattended, follow their natural behaviour.

The remarkable provenance of this painting should also be highlighted. The work belonged to Baron Etienne-Edmond-Martin de Beurnonville, one of the most important Parisian collectors of the 19th century, and later entered the collection of the German-Belgian industrialist August Ridder and his son. It subsequently belonged to the Dutch entrepreneur Anton Philips. A trained banker, he joined the company 'Philips electronics', founded by his brother, in 1895; within a few decades it developed into an international industrial group and by 1933 had become a leading global manufacturer of radios. Together with his wife Anna Philips de Jongh, Anton Philips assembled one of the largest private art collections in the Netherlands, which they displayed in their family home De Laak in Eindhoven. Their discerning eye for 17th-century Dutch painting led to the acquisition of this high-quality work, which hung alongside paintings by Rembrandt (1606/07–1669), Jan van Goyen (1596–1656) and other masters in their collection.