Sailing Vessels on an Inland Body of Water

c. 1640 - c. 1645

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 50 cm × width 69 cm
outersize: depth 7.7 cm (support incl. SK-L-5844)

Inscriptions

signature and date, lower left, on the rowing boat: SvR·16[.. ]

Technical notes

Support The panel consists of two horizontally grained oak planks (approx. 21.5 and 27.9 cm), approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks and some plane marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1624. The panel could have been ready for use by 1635, but a date in or after 1641 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, solid, thin, off-white ground extends up to the edges of the support and barely fills the grain of the wood.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The composition was built up in what appear to be one or two thin layers, with coarse and rapid brushstrokes that are visible throughout, especially in the sky. A reserve was left for the small boat in the foreground, while the others were executed on top of the background. The paint was mostly applied wet in wet, with the addition of small fluid dabs in the final stage to further model the figures and vessels, and give more detail to the sea. Impasto was used in the flag in the centre and is visible along the contours of the boats.
Ige Verslype, 2023

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: I. Verslype, RMA, 3 July 2008
paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, nos. SK-A-3258/1-2, 3 July 2008
technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 3 July 2008
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 22 October 2011

Condition

Fair. There is a pronounced crack pattern in the lighter areas of the sky. Small pinpoint losses in the paint layer are apparent throughout. The varnish is irregular and is discoloured.

Conservation

conservator unknown, 1967: paint splashes removed; revarnished

Provenance

…; sale, M. Blyckaerts (Brussels), Paris (Clisorius), 28 November 1808, no. 83 (‘Une Vue d’eau où l’on voit plusieurs chaloupes. B.’);¹…; purchased in France by the dealer Nicolaas Beets, Amsterdam, before 1929;²…; donated by Sir Henri W.A. Deterding (1866-1939), London, to the museum, with 17 other paintings, 1936; on loan to the Royal Collection of the Netherlands, The Hague, since 1963

Object number: SK-A-3258

Credit line: Gift of H.W.A. Deterding, London

The artist

Salomon van Ruysdael (Naarden 1600/03 - Haarlem 1670)

Salomon van Ruysdael was born in Naarden, presumably between 1600 and 1603, because when he enrolled as a master in Haarlem’s Guild of St Luke in 1623 he must have been at least 20 years old. He was a son, probably the youngest one, of the prosperous Mennonite cabinetmaker Jacob Jansz de Gooyer. After the latter’s death in 1616 the artist and his brothers adopted the surname derived from the Ruysdael or Ruisschendael country estate near Blaricum, where their father had been born.

Van Ruysdael settled in Haarlem, and is first mentioned in the St Luke archives there in 1623, when he presented the guild with a landscape he had painted. Shortly before 1627 he married Maycke Willemsdr Buyse, the daughter of a wealthy Mennonite bleacher, and it was through her family that he became involved in that trade, dealing in the blue agent used in the city’s famous bleacheries. That explains why he also became a member of the local drapers’ guild in 1658. By 1657 he also owned a share in a tanning mill in Gorinchem, a town east of Rotterdam. As a Mennonite he was not allowed to bear arms, so each year he had to buy off his obligations to the Haarlem civic guard.

Van Ruysdael’s earliest known paintings are from 1626: The Valkenburg Horse Fair and Dune Landscape with a Horseman Riding a Grey.³ In 1628 Samuel Ampzing praised both him and Gerrit Bleker as landscapists in his Beschryvinge of Haarlem. His work started appearing on the market as early as 17 November 1631, when two of his pictures were sold from the collection of Hendrick Willemsz den Apt, the landlord of the Coningh van Vranckrijck inn. Van Ruysdael took an active part in organizing lotteries and sales in Haarlem, and in 1642 he vainly tried to persuade the authorities not to ban auctions of paintings.

On 6 October 1637 Van Ruysdael paid St Luke’s for an apprenticeship for Hendrik Pietersz de Hondt (dates unknown). Cornelis Decker (1618-1678) is mentioned as a pupil in 1649, and others whom he taught were his son Jacob (1629/30-1681) and his nephew Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682). He served the guild as warden in 1647, 1663-64 and 1669-70, and as dean in 1648. Van Ruysdael’s last dated works are from 1669: Winter Landscape with Skaters and View of Alkmaar with a Maypole.⁴ He was buried in the high choir of the Grote Kerk in Haarlem on 3 November 1670. Although he was reasonably well-off, his finances had suffered in a recession.

His oeuvre consists largely of landscapes, many with views of rivers and some featuring an inn, as well as a number of seascapes and winter scenes. He also began painting still lifes in 1659.

Richard Harmanni, 2023

References
S. Ampzing, Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem in Holland, Haarlem 1628 (reprint Amsterdam 1974), p. 372; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, III, Amsterdam 1721, p. 66; J. Immerzeel Jr, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van het begin der vijftiende eeuw tot heden, II, Amsterdam 1843, p. 41; A. van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders en andere beoefenaren van de beeldende kunsten, voorafgegaan door eene korte geschiedenis van het schilders- of St. Lucas Gild aldaar, Haarlem 1866, pp. 183-84; A. van der Willigen, Les artistes de Harlem: Notices historiques avec un précis sur la Gilde de St. Luc, Haarlem/The Hague 1870, pp. 254-55; P. Scheltema, Aemstel’s oudheid of gedenkwaardigheden van Amsterdam, VI, Amsterdam 1872, pp. 99-100; H.F. Wijnman, ‘Het leven der Ruysdaels’, Oud Holland 49 (1932), pp. 49-60, 173-81, 258-75, esp. pp. 52, 56, 272-73; Simon in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIX, Leipzig 1935, pp. 189-90; W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael: Eine Einführung in seine Kunst, Berlin 1975 (ed. princ. 1938), pp. 11-14; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lucasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1798, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies 15th-17th Century’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 99-363, esp. pp. 289-90; Van der Molen in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, C, Munich/Leipzig 2018, pp. 203-04

Entry

In the 1640s Salomon van Ruysdael started painting scenes dominated by water and sailing ships which can be regarded as marines.⁵ Stechow made a selection of almost 40 works of this kind, only 16 of which are dated.⁶ The earliest is from 1642,⁷ and since the last is from 1663,⁸ it can be assumed that Van Ruysdael produced this type until the end of his life. His seascapes follow the same evolution as his landscapes, from monochromes at first to increasingly colourful views in the 1650s.⁹

There is always a bank or part of the shoreline in Van Ruysdael’s marines, but this particular painting is exceptional in that the coast plays a very marginal role. It is only recognizable as such from the church tower in the left background, and the fact that it is not tucked away behind the dunes shows that this is not a stretch of sea but a broad river or a lake. This is confirmed by the calmness of the waves and the types of inland vessel: smalschip and wijdschip.¹⁰ The pole on the left, which may mark an eel-trap, also identifies this as shallow water.

The dark band in the foreground is typical of Van Ruysdael, and especially of his marines. It heightens the lighting of the elements in the middle ground, creating a greater sense of depth, which is enhanced here by the clouds moving away towards the horizon. According to Stechow the panel is dated 1643 and not 1645, as earlier stated.¹¹ However, the last two digits are no longer legible. The monochrome manner that characterized Van Ruysdael’s work in the first half of the 1640s fully justifies placing this picture in that period.

Richard Harmanni, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

W. Stechow, Salomon van Ruysdael: Eine Einführung in seine Kunst, Berlin 1975 (ed. princ. 1938), p. 111, no. 282 (as dated 1643)

Collection catalogues

1937, p. 44, no. 2084c; 1976, p. 490, no. A 3258

Citation

Richard Harmanni, 2023, 'Salomon van Ruysdael, Sailing Vessels on an Inland Body of Water, c. 1640 - c. 1645', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5344

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