Country House in a Park

c. 1675

Jacob van Ruisdael

Artist, Dutch, c. 1628/1629 - 1682

Jacob van Ruisdael

Attributed to

A garden with two fountains stretches back to a manor house in the distance in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition, and gray clouds tower in the vivid blue sky above. A pine tree closer to us to the left of center rises high against the sky. There are a few more evergreens to the right among dark-green canopied trees. A yellowed pine tree has fallen on the grassy lawn in the lower left quadrant of the composition. Just beyond this, the fountain to the left has a tall, columnar base under a dish-like basin. Water fountains sprays up and out from the center of the dish and trickles down the sides. The fountain is topped with a statue, perhaps of a child. Three people stand at the base of this fountain, which is three times their height. The fountain to the right has a blocky base about the height of a person. Water streams out from the front and two sides in this view. On the base is an urn-like form that shoots water high into the air. Five more people stand, run, or walk across the garden between the fountains. The women’s long dresses have red, white, or black skirts and pale pink or black bodices. Two wear black head coverings, and the third wears a white head covering. One man wears brown and the other black, and both have wide-brimmed hats. Near the right edge of the painting, three more people wearing black stand around an arched opening that appears to be covered in moss and/or other plants. The people all appear to have light skin but not all faces or hands are visible. A broken column lies in the bushes in the lower right corner of the composition. The final person stands entirely in shadow in the distance between two rows of trees that flank an opening to the house. The structure appears to have two tall stories with four chimneys on the dark green-gray roof and light brown walls. Angular bays of windows are outlined with white trim on the symmetrical façade.

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Jacob van Ruisdael represents the pinnacle of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting. This great artist, the son of a painter and the nephew of Salomon van Ruysdael (see NGA 2007.116.1), began his career in Haarlem but moved to Amsterdam in about 1656. His long and productive career yielded a wide variety of landscape scenes that reflect Ruisdael’s vision of the grandeur and powerful forces of nature.

Depictions of elegant country houses came into vogue in the latter half of the seventeenth century as increasing numbers of wealthy Dutch merchants built homes along the river Vecht and in other picturesque locations in the Dutch Republic. Yet not all of these seemingly accurate representations portray real structures; sometimes the scenes were purely imaginary, intended to project an ideal of country existence rather than its actuality. In this painting, Ruisdael, who depicted views of country houses only at the end of his career, either created an imaginary view of a country estate or superimposed the existing town home of a patron onto this scene of a wilderness garden. The house, with a yellow façade articulated by pilasters, a stringcourse, and a balustrade, would be very much at home on the bank of an Amsterdam canal.

The garden seems to be an artistic invention as well. The natural and artificial components of Ruisdael’s garden are enjoyed by the various groups of people who amble about. An elaborate fountain, surmounted by a small sculpted figure of a boy, is counterbalanced by an even more dramatic fountain in the right center. Just beyond, two figures gesture in surprise as they are startled by the water from a trick fountain spurting up around them. The soaring Norwegian spruces, exotic specimens native to Scandinavia that had been used in Dutch gardens since at least the 1640s, provide visual depth as well as striking contrasts with the cloudy sky.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Rupert L. Joseph

  • Dimensions

    overall: 76.3 x 97.5 cm (30 1/16 x 38 3/8 in.)
    framed: 98.4 x 118.4 x 6.7 cm (38 3/4 x 46 5/8 x 2 5/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1960.2.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Country House in a Park, c. 1675

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Savile family, Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire, possibly Sir John Savile, 1st baron Savile [1818-1896], or his nephew John Savile Savile-Lumley, 2nd baron Savile [1853-1931]; the latter's son, George Halifax Lumley-Savile, 3rd baron Savile [1919-2008], Rufford Abbey; (Savile family sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 18 November 1938, no. 123); Rupert L. Joseph [d. 1959], New York;[1] bequest 1960 to NGA.
[1] Labels on the stretcher indicate that the painting was lent by Mr. Joseph to the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, in 1942 and the Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1948. The loan to the museum in Springfield lasted at least until 1955; see the letter of 23 May 1955 from Frederick B. Robinson, director of the museum, to Mr. Joseph, to which was attached a list of the objects currently on loan from the collector (Rupert L. Joseph Papers, MssCol 1598, Manuscripts and Archives DIvision, New York Public Library: box 2, folder 1; copy in NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1942

  • Loan to display with permanent collection, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, 1942-1948.

1948

  • Loan to display with permanent collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1948-1955.

1981

  • Jacob van Ruisdael, Mauritshuis, The Hague; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981-1982, no. 54.

1996

  • Obras Maestras de la National Gallery of Art de Washington, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, color repro.

Bibliography

1907

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. 8 vols. Translated by Edward G. Hawke. London, 1907-1927: 4(1912):256, no. 819.

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907-1928: 4(1911):xxxxx, no. 819.

1928

  • Rosenberg, Jakob. Jacob van Ruisdael. Berlin, 1928: 67, no. 520.

1964

  • Gorissen, Friedrich. _ Conspectus Cliviae. Die klevische Residenz in der Kunst des 17. Jahrhunderts_. Kleve, 1964: under no. 62.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 119.

1967

  • Dattenberg, Heinrich. Niederrheinansichten holländischer Künstler des 17. Jahrhunderts. Die Kunstdenkmäler des Rheinlands 10. Düsseldorf, 1967: 283, no. 312.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 106, repro.

1975

  • National Gallery of Art. European paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Washington, 1975: 316, repro.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 294, no. 392, repro.

1981

  • Slive, Seymour, and Hans Hoetink. Jacob van Ruisdael. Exh. cat. The Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague; The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. New York, 1981: no. 54.

  • Schmidt, Winfried. Studien zur Landschaftskunst Jacob van Ruisdaels: Frühwerke und Wanderjahre. Hildesheim, 1981: 75, pl. 22.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 295, no. 385, color repro.

1985

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, 1985: 364, repro.

1991

  • Walford, E. John. Jacob van Ruisdael and the Perception of Landscape. New Haven, 1991: 167-168, repro.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 345-348, color repro. 347.

1996

  • Ortiz Hernán, Elena, and Octavio Hernández R. Obras maestras de la National Gallery of Art. Translated by Bertha Ruiz de la Concha. Exh. cat. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996: 72-73, repro.

2001

  • Slive, Seymour. Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings. New Haven, 2001: 417, no. 588.

Inscriptions

lower left: J v Ruisdael (JvR in ligature)

Wikidata ID

Q20177647

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