Aert van der Neer, Winter Landscape at Sunset

Winter Landscape at Sunset, c. 1650 - 1655. Aert van der Neer (1603 - 1677)

Aert van der Neer specialised in painting scenes illuminated by the rising sun, or nocturnes with figures and buildings picked out by moonlight. This large landscape depicts a typical Dutch village at twilight with figures on a frozen river engaged in various activities including a game of colf. This painting, like most of the artist's work, is an idealised view of a town with two windmills in the middle distance, though van der Neer often included recognisable buildings in his pictures.

Oil on canvas. 104.5 x 145 cm. Inscription: ront ll (on tree-trunk) 'A V N' (in monogram)

On stretcher, auction stencil: '575B'. On reverse, label with a printed description of the painting in French.

New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester, UK (L.F15.1981.0.0; former accession: 15 A 1981). Gift from HM Government, 1979

Michael Levey suggested that this painting is identifiable with cat. no. 554 in Hofstede de Groot's Catalogue of Dutch Painters, vol. 7; this is the source of the possible early provenance to the D. van der Schrieck sale.

Provenance

• Possibly D. van der Schrieck sale, Louvain, 1861, lot 65, bought by Henry Farrer, London, 2, 100 francs;
• H. A. J. Munro, Novar, by 1864;
• possibly Charles Butler; by descent to Charles H. A. Butler;
• given by the estate of Charles H. A. Butler to H. M. Government in lieu of tax, before 1979.

Exhibitions

• Possibly British Institution, London, 1864, cat. no. 4;
• Dutch Landscape Painting, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1983, cat. no. 56.

Publications

• Groot, C. Hofstede de, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler, Paris, 1918, vol. 7, p. 456, cat. no. 554;
• Wright, C., Dutch Landscape Painting, Newcastle, 1983, cat. no. 56, p. 98, ill. p. 75.

Source: Do Smit