Currently not on view
Forest Landscape,
ca. 1650
The greatest of all Dutch landscape artists, Jacob van Ruisdael imbued his paintings with a forceful grandeur unmatched by any of his contemporaries. This is one of a number of woodland views featuring botanically accurate trees that he painted in the 1650s. These works express the nobility and peaceful beauty of forests and woods. They might also include an allegorical dimension. Here, man (in the form of a shepherd) is dwarfed by the majesty of nature. Dead and broken trees lying in the foreground, in contrast to the healthy trees in the forest, may suggest the transitory or cyclical nature of life.
Information
ca. 1650
<p> Count Heinrich von Brühl (1700-1763), Dresden; sold to Empress Catherine II (d. 1796) via Dmitri Alekseyevich Golitsyn in 1768 for the Imperial Hermitage, St. Petersburg; State Hermitage Museum, Petrograd/Leningrad; transferred from museum to the Soviet government for export on February 19, 1930 [1]. Galerie Hugo Helbing, Munich, March 2, 1932, lot 484, sold to Linger(?), Prague [2]. Axel Wenner-Gren (Uddevalla, Sweden 1881-1961 Stockholm), by 1940; his sale, Sotheby’s London, March 24, 1965, lot 23; Alfred Brod Gallery, London (in 1965); Herman Shickman Gallery, New York (in 1967); Elias and Frances Wolf, Philadelphia (by 1979); gift to the Princeton University Art Museum. </p> <p> [1] Letter from Irina Sokolova, Curator of Dutch Paintings, State Hermitage Museum, January 9, 2003 </p> <p> [2] According to annotated sale catalogue held by the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich </p>
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<p>Gustav Friedrich Waagen, <em>Die Gemäldesammlung in der Kaiserlichen Ermitage zu St. Petersburg, nebst Bemerkungen über andere dortige Kunstsammlungen</em>, (München: F. Bruckmann, 1864).</p>, p. 242
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A. Somoff and E. Brüiningk, <em>Ermitage Imperial: Catalogue de la Galerie des Tableaux</em>, (St. Pétersbourg: [Gosudarstvennyĭ Ėrmitazh]?, 1891-1903)., Vol. 2: p. 382; no. 1149
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Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, <em>Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten Holländischen Maler des XVII Jahrhunderts</em>, (Esslingen; Stuttgart; Paris; London: Neff, 1907-1928)., Vol. 4: no. 122
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Jakob Rosenberg, <em>Jacob van Ruisdael</em>, (Berlin: Cassirer, 1928). , no. 82
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<p>Hedy B. Landman, <em>European and American art from Princeton alumni collections, </em>(Princeton, NJ: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1972).</p>, p. 13; p. 15, cat. no. 9 (illus.)
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"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1979," <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University </em>39, no. 1/2 (1980): p. 40-63., p. 56
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Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones,<em> Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, </em>(Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 121 (illus.)
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Seymour Slive, <em>Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings</em> (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001),, p. 414
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