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Gallery Text

Jacob van Ruisdael was the most innovative and versatile Dutch landscapist of the seventeenth century. In the 1660s, he painted a number of vertically oriented landscapes with waterfalls that evoke a Scandinavian wilderness. Although Dutch merchants acquired raw materials — timber for shipbuilding and iron ore for munitions — from Norway and Sweden, to most residents of the Low Countries the terrain depicted here must have looked strange and forbidding. Ruisdael never visited Scandinavia, but invented these views based on his knowledge of works by Allart van Everdingen, an artist who had traveled in Sweden and Norway in 1644 and made a career of depicting Nordic scenery.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1953.2
People
Jacob van Ruisdael, Dutch (Haarlem 1628/29 - 1682 Amsterdam)
Title
Waterfall with a Half-Timbered House and Castle
Other Titles
Alternate Title: A Waterfall with a Castle and a Cottage
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1665-1670
Places
Creation Place: Europe, Netherlands
Culture
Dutch
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/299988

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2300, European Art, 17th–19th century, Seventeenth–Century Dutch and Flemish Art
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
99.7 x 86.4 cm (39 1/4 x 34 in.)
frame: 128.5 x 118 cm (50 9/16 x 46 7/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: on a rock l.r. J v.Ruisdael

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Possibly [Gimpel & Wildenstein, New York]. Edward Rathbone Bacon (after 1890) (1), by descent; to Virginia Purdy Bacon (2), sold; to Henry Clay Frick (1918?), by descent; to Adelaide Frick (Mrs. Henry Clay Frick), New York (1919) by descent; to Miss Helen Clay Frick, New York (1931) gift; to Fogg Art Museum, 1953.

Notes:
1. Started buying Flemish, Dutch and English art c. 1890.
2. Mrs. Walter Rathbone Bacon (d. 1919) was the sister-in-law of Edward R. Bacon.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Helen Clay Frick
Accession Year
1953
Object Number
1953.2
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center, Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture from American College and University Collections: Inaugural Exhibition, exh. cat. (Chapel Hill, NC, 1958), cat. no. 53, repr.
  • Wolfgang Stechow, Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century, Phaidon (London, England, 1966), p. 145 and repr. as fig. 288
  • Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, exh. cat., Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, 1967)
  • Paula DeCristofaro and James Swope, "Technical Analysis of the Materials and Methods of Jacob van Ruisdael" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, July 1982), Unpublished, pp. 1-31 passim
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 192, p. 168, repr.
  • Thomas Bredsdorff, Et landskab af naturen malet: En tese om malernes natur, Kritik (Copenhagen, 1987), vol. 20, no. 79/80, pp. 56-70, pp. 59-61, repr. p. 61
  • Jean-Philippe Domecq, Ruisdael Ciel Ouvert, Editions Adam Biro (Paris, France, 1989), p. 123, repr. p. 100, no. 46
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 54, color plate; pp. 128, 189, repr. b/w cat. no. 161
  • Masterpieces of world art : Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1997
  • Martha Frick Symington Sanger, Henry Clay Frick, An Intimate Portrait, Abbeville Press (New York, NY, 1998), pp.115, 119, fig. 2-28, repr. in b/w
  • Seymour Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, Yale University Press (New Haven and London, 2001), cat. no. 166, repr.
  • Greg Harris, Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape, brochure, Royal Academy of Arts (London, 2005), pp. 17-18, ill. p. 17 as no. 33
  • Seymour Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts (London, England, 2005), no. 33, pp. 110-111, repr. in color; p. 9
  • Alberto de Andrés, Alpine Views: Alexandre Calame and the Swiss Landscape, exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute/Yale University Press (Williamstown,MA, New Haven and London, 2006), p. 23, ill. fig. 4
  • Old Masters, auct. cat., Christie's, London (London, December 3, 2019), p. 106

Exhibition History

  • Inaugural Exhibition, William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center, Chapel Hill, 09/20/1958 - 10/20/1958
  • Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture from the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 10/12/1967 - 12/03/1967
  • From El Greco to Pollock, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 10/22/1968 - 12/08/1968
  • Masterpieces of European Art, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 06/22/1985 - 09/15/1985
  • Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 06/26/2005 - 09/18/2005; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 10/23/2005 - 02/05/2006; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 02/25/2006 - 06/04/2006
  • Re-View: S424-426 Western Art from 1560 to 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/16/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2012 - 06/01/2013
  • 32Q: 2300 Dutch & Flemish, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 09/08/2017; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/17/2018 - 09/25/2019; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/01/2019 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu