Jan van Goyen
Old Castle with a Moat
Oil on panel. 26 x 33 cm.
Monogrammed and dated lower left (on the boat): VG 1646.
This river landscape, dated 1646, was painted during the heyday of monochrome or tonal landscape painting, a genre pioneered by Jan van Goyen, Salomon van Ruysdael and Pieter Molijn. The subtly nuanced colouring consists only of a few, mostly warm tones of earthy brown, ochre and olive green. The unusually large architectural motif is remarkable within the artist's œuvre. On the left edge of the picture we see a hexagonal tower painted in dark, shadowy tones, from which a drawbridge leads up towards to a towering castle with turrets and battlements surrounded by a moat.
Certificate
Walther Bernt, Munich, September 1977.
Provenance
Baron Léopold Rroslin d'Ivry 1801-1883. - Auction "Collection de M. le baron L. d'Ivry", Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 7.5.1884, lot 52. - Auction, Brussels, 12.7.1905, lot 27 (m. ill.). - Auction Frédéric Muller & Cie, Amsterdam, 26.4.1910, lot 47 - Galerie Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam, 1911 (gallery label on the back of the wooden panel with the handwritten no. 2344; not listed in Goudstikker's "Black Notebook"). - Coll. M. Kellner, Vienna. - Auction Rudolph Lepke "Galerie eines Wiener Sammlers", Berlin 3.12.1929, lot 2 (m. ill.). - Auction Amsterdam, 22.6.1954, lot 631. - Gallery Xaver Scheidwimmer, Munich, 1976. - Auction Fischer, Lucerne, 17.6.1977, lot 310. - South German private collection.
Literature
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot: Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, 10 vols, Esslingen und Paris, 1910-28, vol. 8, Esslingen and Paris 1923, p. 229, no. 950 and p. 233, no. 968. - Weltkunst 15.8.1976, p. 1424 (m. ill.) and 1.6.1977, p. 1217 (m. ill.). - Hans-Ulrich Beck: Jan van Goyen 1596-1656. Ein Oeuvreverzeichnis, vol. II, Amsterdam 1973, p. 351, no. 783 and vol. III, Doornspijk 1987, p. 236, no. 783 (with ill.).