Jacob van Ruisdael
(Netherlands 1628–1682)
Wooded hillside with a view of Bentheim Castle
- Other titles:
- A castle on a hill
- Location
- 15th–19th c European art
- Further information
It is hard to escape the melancholy which imbues this painting. Indeed, a significant part of the appeal of van Ruisdael to his many English and Continental collectors was just this sense of sad foreboding, of abandonment and uneasy calm. Such works were a source of inspiration, and affirmation, to a later generation of romantic painters. Constable was particularly taken with van Ruisdael's work, as were the artists of the Barbizon School. He was not simply the leading Dutch landscapist of the seventeenth century, but the most forward-looking, one might say modern, of all northern artists of his day. Van Ruisdael invested his compositions with something more than a spirit of place: it is possible to read his paintings as equivalents of mental states. 'Wooded hillside with a view of Bentheim Castle', a site he was drawn to paint on twelve occasions, is gloomy in the extreme. Yet through the shadowy foreground and steep, uninviting track, the castle itself, backlit by a burst of splendid clouds, rises like an apparition of hope.
AGNSW Handbook, 1999.
- Year
- 1655-1660
- Media
- Painting
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 60.2 x 73.9cm stretcher; 78.5 x 91.9 x 5.5cm frame
- Signature & date
- Signed l.c., oil "JvR" [artist's monogram]. Not dated.
- Credit
- Gift of James Fairfax AO 1991
- Accession number
- 256.1991
- Provenance
- James Oswald Fairfax AC (Australia, b.1933), 1979-28 Oct 1991, Bowral/New South Wales/Australia, Gift of James Fairfax 1991. Purchased by James Fairfax from Agnew's 1979.
Agnew's, London (England, estab. 1817), 1978-1979, London/England, Sold to James Fairfax 1979. Agnew's stock no. 41601
C.G. Hoare (England), 05 Mar 1926-1978, England, Hoare family collection until 1978
Agnew's, London (England, estab. 1817), 17 Nov 1925-05 Mar 1926, London/England, Purchased by C.G. Hoare, 5 March 1926. Agnew's stock no. 6005
Camillo Castiglioni (Austria, b.1879, d.1957), pre 17 Nov 1925, Vienna/Austria, his sale, Amsterdam, 17-20 November 1925. Sold 17 November, lot no. 75 'Coteau boisé avec château fort' purchased Agnew's, 17,500 fl.
Carl von Hollitscher (Germany), circa 1912, Berlin/Germany, by 1912, see 'Die Gemalde-sammlung des Herrn Carl von Hollitscher in Berlin' by Wilhelm Bode, Max J. Friedlander, 1912
Étienne-Edmond Martin, 2nd Baron de Beurnonville (France, d.1906), pre 21 May 1883, France, Beurnonville's sale, Hotel Drouot, 27 January 1882, lot no. 60 (Paysage) said to be bought by Lenoir (6,000 francs) but presumably bought in. Sold Hotel Drouot, 21-22 May 1883, lot no. 88 'Le Chateau sur la colline' (6,100 francs)
Hôtel Drouot (France), 27 Jan 1882, Paris/France
Bourgeois, post 28 Apr 1881, Purchased at Hotel Drouot, 28 April 1881, lot no. 20, 11,000 francs
François Nieuwenhuys (France), pre 28 Apr 1881, Paris/France, his (anon.) sale, Hotel Drouot, 28 April 1881, lot no. 20, purchased Bourgeois, 11,000 francs
Joseph (England), London/England
