Lot 1162 Dα

The depictions of river landscapes with prominent buildings including castles, ruins and forts, are, in van Goyen's oeuvre, less extensive than his other motifs. In most cases, these pictures were created between 1645 and 1655 and thus belong to his later works. Our atmospheric painting depicts a castle-like and probably uninhabited building on a steep slope of a river bank beneath a cloudy sky which occupies more than half of the picture. Van Goyen's primary concern here is the clouds and their reflection in the water, along with the contrasts of brightly lit and shaded areas in the sky, on land and in water. Everything is brought together through the use of a uniform colour scheme.
Jan van Goyen's Mighty Castle once belonged to the passionate collector Hermine Feist-Wollheim in Berlin who, alongside high quality porcelain, also owned various paintings. Following her death on 17th November 1933, her sons and heirs faced massive reprisal due to their Jewish heritage, and Dr. Hans Feist-Wollheim's sale of the Goyen painting following his emigration to Switzerland also occurred under considerable pressure. However in spring 2014, a just and fair solution according to the Washington Principles was agreed upon at the behest of the consignor between themselves, Lempertz and the Feist-Wollheim estate.