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A full moon rises on the left through deep dark blue clouds, over a moody twilight water landscape.

The dramatic sky takes up two-thirds of the painting. The estuary water and landscape are textured and flat from the left to center, and rises into hills on the right, there’s a distant slighter hill on the far left. The sublime illumination comes primarily from the moon through moving clouds. A man and woman walk away from the scene on the lower right, near a silhouetted bare tree, a child with them restrains a dog on a leash who’s pointing toward the center. A church and small village rest on the horizon in the gloaming distance.

Gallery Text

Specializing in nocturnal scenes, Aert van der Neer painted imaginary views of nature, a genre of landscape painting first developed in Flanders in the mid-16th century. In this depiction of a moonlit estuary, Van der Neer delineated moonlight on the clouds, distant hillsides, and still water using thin, soft brushwork and minuscule dabs of paint. Boats, cottages, and a church tower are silhouetted against the cloudy sky, whose colors change from orange-pink and light blue to dark bluish-gray as the sun sets and the moon rises. Van der Neer also inserted signs of life throughout the composition: ducks resting by the shore in the foreground, cows drinking water in the distance, and at right, a family with a dog barking at the birds.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2016.239
People
Aert van der Neer, Dutch (Amsterdam 1603 - 1677 Amsterdam?)
Title
Moonlit Estuary
Other Titles
Former Title: Landscape in Twilight
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1640-1650
Culture
Dutch
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/356427

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 panel
Dimensions
23 × 38 cm (9 1/16 × 14 15/16 in.)
framed: 39 × 52 cm (15 3/8 × 20 1/2 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: lower left-center: monogram
  • stamp: verso, on panel, left center, black ink: [illeg. stamp]
  • stamp: verso, lower left, black ink: [illeg. stamp]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Collection Daniel Mesman (d. 1834), London, bequest; to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, 1834, deacessioned and sold [through Sotheby's, London, July 1, 1953, lot 137]. [Charles Dick, Vevey, Switzerland]. [Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam, Summer 1956]. Albert Stöcker (d. 1987), The Netherlands and France, sold [through Paris, George V, and Ader, Picard, Tajan April 12-13, 1989, no. 24]; to [Johnny van Haeften, Ltd., London], sold; to Anne and Peter Brooke, Boston, MA, 1990

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Peter and Anne Brooke
Accession Year
2016
Object Number
2016.239
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
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Publication History

  • John Massey, Fitzwilliam Museum: A Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, etc., bequeathed to the University of Cambridge, by the late Daniel Mesman, esq. in the year 1834 and of other articles deposited in the museum building at the Pitt press, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, 1846), p. 7, no. 113
  • F. R. Earp, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures in the Fitzwilliam Museum (London, 1902), p. 142, no. 97
  • Catalogue of Old Pictures: Exhibited at the Gallery of C. V. Kunsthandel P. de Boer, auct. cat., Kunsthandel P. de Boer (Amsterdam, Summer 1956), not paginated, repr.
  • Une Vente pour La Nature placée sous le haut patronage de Son Altesse Royale le Prince Bernhard des Pays-Bas, Succession de Monsieur Stöcker, auct. cat., Ader, Picard, Tajan (Paris, April 12-13, 1989), pp. 52-53, lot 24, repr. p. 53
  • Peter C. Sutton, Prized Possessions: European Paintings from Private Collections of Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exh. cat., MFA Publications (Boston, 1992), pp. 46, 189, repr. p. 46, cat. no. 105
  • Wolfgang Schulz, Aert van der Neer, Davaco Publishers (Doornspijk, 2002), p. 426, no. 1214, repr. as plate 55 and ill. 193
  • Ronni Baer, The Poetry of Everyday Life: Dutch Painting in Boston, MFA Publications (Boston, 2002), p. 116, repr.
  • A. Cassandra Albinson and Jessie Park, "A Glimpse into the Dutch Golden Age", Index Magazine ([e-journal], April 27, 2018), https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/article/a-glimpse-into-the-dutch-golden-age, accessed April 30, 2018

Exhibition History

  • Old Pictures, Kunsthandel P. de Boer, 07/01/1956 - 09/30/1956
  • Prized Posessions: European Paintings from Private Collections of Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 06/17/1992 - 08/16/1992
  • The Poetry of Everyday Life: Dutch Painting in Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 06/12/2002 - 09/15/2002
  • 32Q: 2300 Dutch & Flemish, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/17/2018 - 09/25/2019; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/01/2019 - 01/01/2050

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