Salomon van Ruysdael - Cattle by a Pond (The Robbery)

Salomon van Ruysdael

Cattle by a Pond (The Robbery)

Oil on canvas (relined). 63.5 x 84 cm.
Signed and dated lower right: S vRuysdael (vR conjoined) 1656.

This landscape from 1656 depicts cattle at a pond surrounded by trees. The men accompanying the cattle are not peasants but armed soldiers who have stolen the cattle, hence the traditional title of "The Robbery". It is a title however that does not seem to fit the peacful, pastoral atmosphere that the landscape evokes.
The landscape evokes the late style of Salomon van Ruysdael and replaces the "tonal painting" of the 1630s in terms of both composition, palette and the depiction of figural staffage. The composition is also no longer dominated by the diagonal. Instead, the tall trees and staffage are spread throughout the picture so that a more static and balanced composition is created. The depiction of the figures and moreover of the animals has become more important, they now play a central role within the composition. The cattle at a pond is a motif that van Ruysdael introduced in the 1640s in his landscapes and that he often used in village landscapes (cf. for example Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-A-2571). The palette is brighter and warmer, ochre and brown tones as well as the clear blue of the sky are dominant; Stechow rightly spoke of a "golden palette" of the landscapes of this period.

Certificate

Walther Bernt, Munich, 8.11.1976.

Provenance

Philipp Panton Collection, Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. - Ronald A. Lee Collection, Ham Common, Surrey, 1953. - Jul. Singer Collection, London, 1955. - Wilhelm Grovermann Collection, Augsburg, 1957. - A. Brod, London, 1964. - Gebr. Douwes, Amsterdam. - Private collection, Germany.

Literature

Wolfgang Stechow: Salomon van Ruysdael. Eine Einführung in seine Kunst mit kritischem Katalog der Gemälde, 2. Ed. Berlin 1975, p. 86, no. 123A.