Neer, Aert van der (Gorinchem 1604 – Amsterdam 1677, here providently ascribed only, see below).

River  Landscape  by  Moonlight .

Seen from rather high point with the river coming from front left and tapering off in a right angle widely into the distance accompanied by banks on both sides. Above it standing quite high the full moon with halo, with its light being reflected in the ending water before the dark strip of land running across through the front, interspersed with both isolated and tufted reed and iris repoussoir. Numerous fishing boats losing themselves in the distance, mostly under sail, and boats, four of the latter of which big in the foreground just as, too, a rigged up twomaster – if not two single-masted crafts lying closely side by side, see below – behind the spit of the dominantly raised left bank to which

and whose mighty trees towering over three thatched cottages/huts of different size, fresh and dense in leaf and united at the top in an arch, occupy about the full height of the painting. Before the cottages man with stick, accompanied by his dog, rambling to the left, while a woman with a dish is about to enter the widely situated frontmost hut, and a fisherman with hook and tackle thrown over, walking into the picture, makes for the fence above of the said twomaster over which more lies for drying.

On the flat right bank with its spits likewise set back a property as well as vista at a presumed place. As repoussoir here especially in front a modestly higher tree besides lateral high trunk broken by the winds and about dead. Rich figuration of any size spread over the whole picture on land and in the boats, partly pertinently occupied, so the fisherman in the boat right in front right with his weirs. The moon’s halo predicting bad weather could have its counterpart in the man in the front center sitting before his boat shitting into the water.

The dominance of  one  of  the  two  banks  observed in such a manner is a general scheme of composition by van der Neer for which Wolfgang Schulz on occasion of the winter landscapes remarks:

“ Compositionally Aert van der Neer continues the practice of emphasising one side of the river … (and) changed very little: A perspectivally narrowing expanse of ice is flanked on both sides by buildup banks of which one is emphasised and the other may open up or be buttressed by a framing tree ” (see below, pp. 86 f.).

Oil on oak panel. 45.6 x 63.2-63.4 cm. In refreshed handmade frame of supposedly about 1920.

On three horizontal elements of 13.9 , 15.2 + 16.5 cm, the outside edges originally beveled in a width of 3-7 cm for up to 5-6 mm. – At the back old German catalog clipping as following:

The originally full format of the sticker crumbling off at the edges clearly recognizable in the panel.

Furthermore with broad wax or chalk pen large from upper left diagonally down to the center “261” as the number of the label, the last figure partially overwritten by Zabel’s notice of possession.

Collection Maas refers to the hospital master Otto Wilhelm Maas there from whose property, according to Getty Provenance Index Sales with “Schmidt 1960” as source, 21 oils were sold in an anonymous sale “In the Senckenberg Foundation House” October 1 ff., 1788. If the present one was among these is undecided as contrary to the printed previous lots the stock appears in the auctioneer’s copy of the catalog only globally “added in writing”, with the remark “given by hospital master Maas”. It might have been an on the spot admission in a predicament. At the same time Maas appeared as the purchaser of a moonlight landscape by van der Neer not corresponding with the size of present one here.

While the importance of the Maas Collection already shows from the quantity of his admission, so also by ranking among the purchasers expressly worth mentioning for Schmidt.

The 164 lots of the printed stock “Probably (refer to) the collection of the merchant Johann Heinrich Mettenius (1710-1770) for in the copy SMF the reference is noted: ‘Mettenius oil paintings’ … The collection almost exclusively consists of works of the Dutch and Flemish school of the 17^th and 18^th centuries”.

The chronological ranging of the anonymous sale following Maas and proven by the “sticker 261” is first suggested by the incorrect living dates of the label, quoting as year of death the knowledge of de Burtin (1808), as then 1841 also taken over by Nagler who assumes for the birth the time between 1613 + 1619, however. With Burtin 1619 as fixed date. And with respect to the place of birth some “let him having been born at Amsterdam”, so Nagler, but at the same time referring to van Eynden who already in 1816 correctly names Gorinchem (see Schulz p. 93). Coming very close to the knowledge of before 1816 and therefore the statement of the label, too, the 1792 biographic sheet to the Apostool aquatint of Schulz 580 (color plate 44 + ills. 205): “BORN at Amsterdam 1609, and died 1683”.

Backed by 1788 the said follow-up sale whose sticker explicitly refers to Maas only, but not also to Fürstenberg etc., should in such a manner appear as certainly “before 1816” as with respect of the living dates just representing the knowledge of Burtin. The conclusion of the oil originating from the 1788 sale seems plausible.

Just for completeness it should be additionally noted that already about 1900 with “1603” literature (Bredius, Philippi, Wurzbach) deviated from today’s knowledge of life + place most marginally only anymore.

The difficulty of establishing the dates of living shortly touched by Nagler and discussed in detail by von Wurzbach (1906/11) regarding a presumed and likewise painting namesake who in 1685 moved from Amsterdam to Gouda and shall still have lived in Rotterdam in 1691 concerns the grandson Aert II, the son of Eglon van der Neer. Only by Wolfgang Schulz the birth of Aert I has been proven definitely as 1604.

The “and others” of the Fürstenberg sale concern the bequests of general von Graeve, Coblenz, and judge Dr. Christian Widenmann.

the latter outlined as follows by Bachmann as the pioneer of the real van der Neer research with whom also Schulz widely concurs invariably :

“ Except for the painting of 1649 in Prague the last quarter of the 40s remains without any datings. We suppose that in this span of time besides marvelous evening landscapes those night pieces have been created …

whose  lateral  trees  rise  up  to  the  top  edge  of  the  painting

(until about the middle of the century, generally the high trees origin with Coninxloo, B. [1975], pp. 220 + 214) … Then in the 50s all recollections of the spatial alley (of the water) fade.

A  wide  river  pasture

takes their place … the perspective slants … only begin close to the background. That was the great form of the Van der Neer composition. The artist had given a new, compelling content to an out-of-age design and intensified the relation between picture and beholder.

The  landscapes  of  this  kind  have  constituted  his  fame .

In his final years under the influence of fashion demands, however, the characteristic composition fell into decay. From the peculiarity of the composition peculiar consequences result …

The  sudden  turning  of  the  river  water

to one or to both sides is annoying since the natural course of the terrain is impaired.

The  river  then  reaches  the  front  edge  of  the  picture  at  no  place .

There lies, disconnected with the middle distance, a dark strip of bank blocking the direction of the river in a right angle … (see on this, however, p. 133 ad HdG 312/Sch. 1122 as “supposedly still created in the 50s”, “… an older composition with the river turning in the middle distance is taken up again and modified”) …

Besides his night skies are fine … The vicinity of the moon makes the rims around the dark center of the cloud shine (with present one Schulz 778 in the light grey of the clouds already an idea of the red later on becoming dominant, see also on this B., 1982, p. 133 ad HdG 312/Sch. 1122, but also p. 106, para. 3) … The light is the center in the work of van der Neer. Generally seen in the 40s it was about the spatial opening, in the 50s it was about the light. The light reached an unthought-of bearing in the Dutch painting of the 17^th century … A. van der Neer has painted the light itself, its source, its cause …

Of  especial  beauty  are  the  light  rims

the back light makes shine at the clouds and at the things in the foreground,

( at  trees , trunks  or  their  branches  for  instance )

… Van der Neer uses an artifice, a special perspective of light whenever on the analogy of artificial light he lets the moonlight getting ever brighter towards the source of light, so that the favored distance attracts the look … So van der Neer’s light not only origins in the moon or the evening sun, but also from Antwerp (that is Rubens) …

The earth warmed up by the heat of the day is represented by a warm, the atmosphere by a cool tone … olive on the trees … The reddish brown stands against the cool colors of the sky … There are red and reddish-brown evening landscapes … Then the glazes with the loan colors follow … and then the whitish moonlight … But the rare night pieces of the 40s still suffered from the oppressive darkness … Only by the middle of the century … his interest turned to … especially the colors … He succeeded

in  producing  the  illusion  of  the  darkness  by  colors ,

the  night  pieces  became  lighter  and  more  friendly

… the people … often walked … into the picture (so then here nearly inclusive of even the marginal little figures without exception back views – except for one, the shitting man, though squatting laterally, but frontally looking out of the picture) … (And)

with  delicacy  and  great  skill

he  has  inserted  the  accessories  in  his  paintings  himself ”

(Bachmann [1982], pp. 66, 78, 85 f., 88, 95, 97, 104, 124).

And Hofstede de Groot resumes :

“ The thematic field of van der Neer is, with few exceptions, limited to two clearly separated models:

moonlight  paintings  and  winter  landscapes .

Besides blazes either at night or in winter … Almost always a water, only rarely a broad path,

confined  on  both  sides  by  buildings  between  trees  extends  into  the  depth  of  the  picture .

With the night scenes it is almost always the rather low full moon that … conjures reflections on the water and the windows of the buildings.

The  late  evening  hours  of  autumn  and  spring  are  depicted

when  man  still  works  outside ,

as  long  as  darkness  has  not  fallen  fully …

The thematic field described here is commanded by v. d. Neer as by no one else.

He  is  the  best  moonlight  painter  of  the  Dutch  school …

Of the moonlit nights and the twilight paintings usually those are the best on which happen to be the least accessories. As the colors disappear, the contours become blurred, the accessories have a slightly fidgety effect. More than humans the silhouettes of ships, drawbridges, windmills, and peaked roofed houses, nay, the outlines of cows and horses, trunks, fences, racks with nets and the like which the artist likes to apply in the foreground of his paintings satisfy us. Also by

the  reflections  of  the  light  on  the  water

… and on all that reflects light at all … he imparts on his creations a special charm ”

(op. cit., pp. 360 ff.).

“ ([Whereby] the guidance into the space … not [happens] by continuous approximation as with a village street of Goyen or S. Ruysdael, but in approximation to the line of the horizon Neer splits the previous diagonal alley into many narrow, horizontal strips whose silhouette is worked exactly and pointedly as in miniatures. A picket fence, poles with nets, trees, sails, and the like form these contours which happen with Neer in singular delicacy) ”

(Willi Drost, 1926, quoted after Schulz, op. cit., p. 103).

which in its style corresponds to the late 40s, early 50s when Neer had achieved his full maturity (Schulz pp. 108 f. + 51), though with respect to the genesis of its panel is suitable only for those last years when the master practically copied himself and revived previous stylistic elements as generally thought for the late period when additionally a new artist generation served a changed taste.

“ He went back to earlier achievements and began imitating himself. Though still successful in the expression of moods and the application of striking colour effects, his paintings are less sensitive; brush strokes are coarser, lacking the delicate touch of earlier works. Examples of this can be found in a series of river landscapes by moonlight of the second half of the sixties ”

(Schulz, op. cit., p. 59). And Bachmann (1982), p. 125:

“ The old pattern was repeated with frequently little variation only and executed rapidly to meet need. Bode says after the economic failure (the wine-tavern, 1662) the artist were forced to work from the acquired treasure of his imaginations for sale. ”

Such deficiency then had Mrs. Hümer-Roskamp, restorer for Old Masters of the Hamburg Art Gallery, to deny the hand of van der Neer for present work, missing the colors’ running into one another, the transparency triumphing with the chief works. Yet always having in mind but one of this kind of the own house while there are quite a number of the master’s paintings. To the assessment here involuntarily neglecting the facts of the late period claimed already by Stechow (Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century, 2^nd ed., 1968, pp. 94 f.) for a “considerable group” of undoubtedly authentic winter landscapes. A neglect by no means foreign here in case of e.g. presented uncertain Ridingers which then are measured all to readily against the final oils of the Hermitage worked for the court of the czars.

Really the statement made just already a generation ago counts, after which

“ (The view, one might be able to come to know an artist in his entirety by sensitive immersing in only some masterpieces, nowadays loses more and more terrain) ”

(H. R. Hoetink, director of The Hague Mauritshuis [Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen] authoritative for the old Netherlanders, refusing as no longer satisfying also Max Friedländer’s relatively contrary opinion, in the catalog of the 1974 Ter Borch exposition there, p. 12).

Correspondingly more differentiatedly Wolfgang Schulz complimented then also present work per letter of June 13, 2005 with the words:

“ Unfortunately it was not possible to see the painting (offered for sale elsewhere) myself, the autopsy thus has yet to come. Therefore I may uphold my provisional considerations against a final assumption of an authorship of Aert van der Neer. Anyhow it looks to me – now also supported by your good photos – to be with great likelihood a work from the 17^th century, what in the case of Aert van der Neer – one of the most copied and faked painters of the Dutch 17^th century – is by no means self-evident. ”

On the latter Bachmann (1982), p. 125:

“ Already from the 17^th century we have reports on copies after paintings of van der Neer (as obviously to be excluded here, see below); the great time of fakes then were the 18^th and 19^th centuries. In this connection it mostly was about one special kind of landscapes by moonlight. ”

And, so Schulz, op. cit., page 55:

“ Undoubtedly it is difficult to separate genuine works from those done by other artists of the seventeenth century in the same style. Besides imitations by the artist’s son, Johannes van der Neer (as deceased already 1665 here not eligible), and those by Anthonie van Borssom (1629-1677, in the present case explicitly excluded by Schulz), some of which come close to what we now would identify as fakes, we must consider the works of Gillis van Scheyndel (1635-1678). ”

And apart from that, so p. 86:

“ Differences in quality of execution in the works by Aert van der Neer sometimes originate with the master himself and are not always the result of poor restoration (as not applicable here besides) ”.

The autopsy of the painting made good by Wolfgang Schulz left it at the opinion with the photos. The tree elements for instance, viewed on their own, would really convince, not the main ship though, neither would the nature of the back of the panel point to van der Neer, yet the knowledge about a priming with reddish-beige ground as one precondition for authorship would be helpful as such is brought to light during restoring. That the white rims of light at the trees front left were painted and not scratched as normally done by him could be ignored and, so the opinion here, emanate from assumed waning care in the late period. Does it not appear thinkable that also the painting-boards of the last years bearing the marks of economical need differ from the gross of former times? See hereto below, too, on the occasion of the discussion of the effected dendrochronological examination. For the obviously still open workgroup of the actual last years an interesting task basing upon just dendrochronological results should here still wait for us.

Otherwise, so Wolfgang Schulz further, the condition of the painting itself were perfect, for an ascription to a contemporary hand it could be thought of the rare Hendrik Minderhout (Rotterdam 1632 – Antwerp 1696) whose however more definite marines as parallels to those of the late van der Neer already the monograph mentions (op. cit., p. 59). – In the said 1788 Frankfort sale by the way “A Moonlight in the style of van der Neer” (c. 40.6 x 50 cm) figured as done by Roelof van Vries (Haarlem c. 1631 – after 1681; no. 90 of the cat. D-183).

After on occasion of a later removal of the painting from the frame the edges of the panels showed more or less all around traces of ground in beige with a touch of red, as already perceptible for the moon-clouds-part of the painting itself, as a result of flat position of the panels during grounding – see Hubertus von Sonnenburg’s “Remarks on Brouwer’s Technique of Painting” in the 1986 Munich exhibition catalog, p. 104 – the Doerner Institute of the Bavarian Staatsgemäldesammlungen was asked if in the absence of a necessity of restoring a possible grounding could be proven by means of infrared reflectography or X-ray photograph. The one as the other, so the result, would be little promising with light ground, as here, the technique would have to pass in such cases.

By which the old analysis by comparison was inaugurated anew. While already the shitting man, looking downright offensively at the beholder and admittedly rare – in the plate part of Schulz  so  without equals indeed, but among the authentic ones nevertheless represented here and there and more decently – , defended his position against Wolfgang Schulz by Fredo Bachmann’s arguing for the late work:

“ Formerly the accessories left a rather modest impression with van der Neer …

Now , however , the  anecdotal  comes  to  the  fore ,

we are in the late period of Dutch painting ”

(Bachmann, 1982, p. 124, and p. 142 on occasion of a late winter painting about 1670: “Some … accessory figures … oddly enough look out of the picture, just as it was the case in the [authentic] winter painting in Bremen [of the late 60s, Schulz 11]”), so during cataloging of the painting as finally considered work by a contemporary anonymous a decisive turn emerged. In favor of the master himself. Concerning an eye-catching fine detail whose lacking occurrence this way among the more than 300 oil reproductions of the Schulz monograph was closely noticed here as probably indication for another hand :

the  optically  stoop-like  formed  planks

as adequate ascent to the left bank whose downright plateau-like spaciousness in exemplary illustration of van der Neer’s compositional arrangement, see at the beginning, has its counterpart in the space-reaching plain right one. Wherever here and there the reproductions of the oils show scenic ascents they are, thus with intentional disregard of architecturally composed stone ascents of Schulz 84 + 362 (both authentic) as well as 129 (presumably authentic) with illustrations 45, 74 + 32, optically unpretentious stairs. But in the

– Schulz D 2, ills. 343; Bachmann (1972) I, ills. I and (1982), p. 46, ills. 31 resp. – we encounter them again  this  way! At the same place of the, however, different design of the left bank! And just with one step more. By this, however, in cases of doubt a

classic  indication  for  an  assignment  of  authorship .

That that drawing from about the middle of the 40s is not just any, rather – together with the “Landscape with the Angler” in Petersburg, Schulz D 10, ills. 342; Bachmann, 1972, II and, 1982 resp., p. 49 with illustrations II and 36 resp. – one of the two Bachmann (1972, p. 13) regards as representative for the whole work

– “ Both the two sheets have to be understood as working studies on the A. v. d. Neer composition in the first place, they ‘prepare the ground’ … The immediacy of the writing, the correspondence with other sheets and with the composition implemented in many paintings show that I and II are from the studio of Aert van der Neer ” –

imparts additional weight on assumed detail correspondence. Remarkable how here in the recourse of the age a solution of large scale found thirty years before and then again neglected finds a resumption that goes beyond a copying of oneself.

But also

The moon as the source of the light corresponds with the intersection of two curves connecting salient positions. And in the horizontal left & right reference points are on the same level. So the foot of the trunk of the topped willow lower left is in harmony with the spit of the right boat, the elevation left of the stairs with the foot of the outer tree right, the ridge of the right house on the left with the end of thicket on the right edge. See the diagram here analogous to those of Bachmann, 1982, p. 81.

“ The symmetry propagates the impression of tranquility and solemnity, what especially in the moonlight nights contributes to the atmosphere ”

and occasionally of the authentic Blaze in Schwerin Schulz 1376, ills. 234, originating from the late 60s

“ Still van der Neer proves himself as master of composition … two horizontals determine the ordered pictorial space … the two banks of the river ”

(Bachmann, 1982, pp. 79 + 142 with ills. 119). And pages 144 f.:

“ Basically he was a conservative man … and many a thing that interested him, also just old-fashioned ones, he kept until the late years, for instance – as in the case here, too – the central-perspective representation of the distance, the confining trees on the sides …

On the other hand the artist strove for his characteristic image form without prejudice and has realized his personal image idea. Only his serious observation of nature could animate the fixed composition, and only his artistic power could spiritualize the landscape.

In doing so he has experimented thrillingly modern with the representation of light and the colors … until he had found his unmistakable form. ”

To some degree present oil reminds of the canal landscape in Darmstadt (GK-265; HdG 184, Sch. 319 with ills. 102, regarded by Bachmann as of 1647 the latest), but also of the river landscape assumed as about 1645 Schulz 1286 with ills. 135, which both are regarded as authentic, but still are markedly far from the spacious water landscape opening to the horizon and the moonlight as central dominant factor. So the painting of 1645 shows the full moon indeed, and that on about the same height as on the one here and as not the rule as usually standing lower, but in the right quarter of the image only while on the painting of 1647 it stands in the center indeed, but hidden behind trees (Schulz: “Probably one of the first nocturnal scenes; as yet no bright moonlight”).

The foliage of especially the main trees on the left partly executed with little refinement as proven else among the authentic oils, too, just as also for the already called in one in Darmstadt of 1647 Schulz 319 or Sch. 248 (ills. 109) in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the one in Rotterdam Sch. 480 (ills. 111), the round trees of the middle distance of Sch. 1288 (about 1645, color frontispiece), Sch. 426 (color plate 50) of the Getty Museum of 1647 (HdG: 1643).

The light points distributed over the whole foliage of these left-side chief trees we encounter as example for daylight likewise with the above Sch. 1288 or as moonlight painting with Sch. 1297 (authentic, ills. 139) while the topped willow cripple front left of the present painting with its fine rims of light salutes as authentic from the 1646/48 painting in Jerusalem (Sch. 377, ills. 122) or the one of the late 40s in Munich (Sch. 438, ills. 168), in both cases from the same place and equally blessed by the light, but is also found i. a., though in reverse and centered, in the authentic winter painting Sch. 215 (about 1660; color plate 7).

The about-dead vanity trunk far right in the painting corresponds in its growth with the left-side one of Sch. 1098 (ills. 154), stated as about 1645 and intensified in its message by two trunks lying on the ground, for which still life-like arrangement Bachmann reclaims a recollection of Savery (Oud Holland LXXXIX, p. 219 with ills. 4).

The himself likewise vanity-laden shitting man joined by the crouching man at the weir in the center of the painting Sch. 215 already introduced above as well as by that one at the topped willow right outside of the authentic winter painting Sch. 29 (supposedly also mid-60s; color plate 11) of the National Gallery, London, whose kolf-club might lie in front of him. Less clear, then turned to the beholder though, the man sitting by the boat right of the winter painting Sch. 229 (without explicit note of authenticity, but sold in 2000 at 277.500 $; color plate 8) like that one right outside at the fishing boats of the 1645 moonlight painting Sch. 1286 (ills. 135) already mentioned above else, he, too, then looking at the beholder and with a stick beside him.

The obviously rare halo of the moon also shown by the authentic coastal landscape Sch. 675 (color plate 41) while for the setting sun of the canal landscape in the Städel at Frankfort/Main, HdG 33 (“authentic”) and Schulz 337 (“possibly authentic”) resp. Bachmann (1982, p. 138 with ills. 113) draws the attention to the impasto white as here with respect to the moon and its reflections on the water in the foreground.

The optical twomaster in the center field, a smalschip with sprit sails and well recognizable leeboard, also could prove to be two single-masted crafts, even more so as the left-side sail rises behind the front one. Then more essential, however, that the front one has been tanned, a costly procedure, the back one apparently not. What would contradict the observed vanity in small communities as indicating it was not enough for the second sail, not least as both show in good condition. It would rather be an either/or. Anyhow it might be analogous to the twomaster illustrated in b/w only of Schulz 283, ills. 275 (early, possibly authentic).

While offer and sale of the present painting providently are as ascribed to van der Neer only, from all the above to the opinion here his authorship results with very great probability since the dendrochronological expert opinion

– “… more likely, however, a cutting date between 1677 … 1681 … 1689+ x. … With a median of 17 sapwood annual rings and a minimal seasoning of the wood of 2 years a creation of the painting is to be assumed for rather on or after 1683” –

basically deems “an earliest creation … with a minimal time of seasoning of the wood of 2 years possible from 1673 onward” and even with a seasoning of three to four years assumed more common with deciduous trees (Doerner, [Paint Material and its Use in the Painting], 14^th ed., 1976, p. 75) there still would remain two to three years (day of death is November 9 and the document of estate of the following 12^th confirmed by the sons Pieter II + Eglon and the son-in-law Warnar Verdyck mentions among several pictures expressly also “‘Maentschyntje’ und ‘wintertje’” [Wurzbach II, p. 221] not identifiable in detail [so Schulz p. 14]) for an authorship. Being reminiscent of also M. L. Wurfbain’s dendrochronological examination of five dated oils by van Goyen in Leyden whereupon this “obviously has favored painting-boards of freshly felled trees” as concluded by Hans-Ulrich Beck (Jan van Goyen III, 1987, p. 12). Isn’t it very likely that the purchase of budget-priced younger boards for the needy late van der Neer meant a question of a to have and not to have?

Here then

“ a  night  by  moonlight  pervaded  by  the  light ”

as van der Neer succeeded in only in the 50s, thereby free of the again increasing blackness “as (with) many works from the late years” (Bachmann, 1982, pp. 47 + 142 ) and with just the shitting man as anecdotal allowance for a new present up to its provocative eyes contact with the beholder. Shortly, independently of the authorship,

“ a  fine  and  perfectly  preserved  painting .”

The latter in the case of van der Neer an absolutum of its own. For

“ Panels and canvases that were left untouched over the past three centuries and a half are extremely rare and thus especially precious ”

(Wolfgang Schulz, by letter per December 2005 and p. 60 op. cit. resp.).

And for painting activity still in the 70s Bachmann (1982) once more, p. 143 :

“ We follow the report by A(braham) Bredius. He describes the (winter) landscape he came across about 1885:

‘I yet have to mention a painting by van der Neer which years ago … was up for sale … It was a large winter landscape … painted peculiarly broad and strong in the manner of Rembrandt. In spite of the genuine monogram one did not deem the piece as genuine then … in my opinion it was that a late, perhaps the latest work of van der Neer, the manner (structure) of the painting was that of an old man’ …

… (T)he work by an old man one would rather not recognize so certainly in this, even if one considers the sometimes effusive manner of A. Bredius … for a lot is executed exactly and easily characterized … (But w)e (thus) learn from a reliable connoisseur of Dutch painting … that the artist has worked extensive winter landscapes still in the seventies after age-related difficulties had already come up, and has repeated the old theme and the old composition. ”

It is about Schulz 91 (probably a late work of around 1670 – authentic as well the oil Schulz 154, with regard of the costumes to be attributed to the same period – whose broken branches occur similarly in works of the 30s and 40s with the Camphuysens as early inspirers as with van der Neer himself), distinguished by color plate 20,

The latter, certainly, thematically entailed mitigated indeed, but in the beginning as herewith not yet suffi-ciently well acquainted with felt as slightly irritatingly strange.

On  the  painting  panels  and  especially  on  the  faultless  planeness  of  the  wood  it shall be quoted for informational purpose as follows :

“ Usually the painters used local kinds of wood … in North Germany, North France, Flanders, Holland, and in England oak was used above all … wood is not simple to handle just with coating and not at all with painting for it reacts on the most varied influences exceedingly sensitively …

In the 15^th down to the 16^th centuries the panels where painted at the back … in equal succession or set … as on the front … The coating of the back thus had the intent to keep the panel plane … Supposedly the back of the paintings was impregnated with hot linseed oil varnish to seal the wood against the influences of the atmosphere. It is one merit of the St. Luke’s Guild that it always supervised the production of the painting panels … By the edges beveled and thinned out resp. by the drawknife or the draw-plane (while the center of the panel kept its not always even thickness) a further enhancement of the painting panel is reached (in analogy to early wooden board bindings).

Such  panels  with  the  beveled  sides

– just  as  here  then , too –

stay  absolutely  plane ,

even  with  severe  variations  in  temperature

(what is not to be misunderstood as warrant for carelessness in this respect and especially neglect of the relative humidity; not in the original). From certain tradition it is also known that selected heartwood was used for the painting panels, and this was even more dried in a special method (which drew along over years) ”

(Doerner, op. cit., pp. 75 + 259 f.).

So then, e.g., Claus Grimm, too, seeing in the case of Frans Hals’ Portrait of a Lady in Stuttgart the generally “homogeneously well preserved color coat” favored by wood as support (Grimm, Frans Hals, 1972, p. 18 ad cat. no. 79).

That the wood of present panel already grew when Columbus discovered a new world may let pause here and there, becoming aware in a high-spirited-hectic time of the long breath and hand of creation, and experience the view of the painting with pleasure, but also respect.

(Eduard Beaucamp in his address of thanks on receipt of the Johann Heinrich Merck Award, FAZ Oct. 23, 06).

Follows account of the situation of the œuvre as a whole

with consideration of one dropped and one entry combining two paintings each, not those numerous not identified works remaining unnumbered from the time of 1694 till 1868, however. – Irrelevant counting errors not precluded, percentages rounded.

I

II

Signatures

“Today almost all paintings associated with Aert van der Neer carry his monogram”

(Schulz, p. 122, bold type and spacing not in the original). Partly up to the date which apart from that generally is rare and temporarily left undone at all, see above.  That  present  oil  bears  no  inscription  therefore  certainly  is  no  deficiency .

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Signatures

“Today almost all paintings associated with Aert van der Neer
carry …” see above)

“ Aert  van  der  Neer  did  not  establish  a  ‘school’.

But this does not mean that his work remained without aftereffects … The existing, but rarely salient influence emanating from van der Neer’s art was sublime. It emanated in varied manner in the English landscape painting of William Turner and in German Romanticism with Caspar David Friedrich ”

(Fredo Bachmann as résumé of his beautiful precursor monograph, out of print since long, of 1982 [by Schünemann in Bremen, page 145] to Schulz).

Offer no. 14,800  /  price on request

“ Today I received the map. It is very good. If you have other sicily 1500 1600 1700, I am intresting. Write me a email with photo and Price ”

(Sign. L. B., October 18, 2007)