Winter Landscape

Aert van der Neer

Paisaje en invierno

Neer, Aert van der

Amsterdam, c. 1603-1604 - 1677

Winter Landscape, c. 1670

© Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza

Imitator of Aert van der Neer
On reverse: red Goudstikker seal
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection

Oil on canvas

36,5 x 45,2 cm

CTB.1934.16

Artwork history

  • Possibly Franz Philipp Joseph, Graf von Schönborn-Buchheim, Vienna, d. 1841

  • By descent, Karl Eduard, d. 1854

  • Erwein Friedrich, d. 1903

  • Friedrich Karl, d. 1932

  • Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam, 1929

  • Thyssen Bornemisza Collection, Lugano, 1934.

  • Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.

1929

J. Goudstikker, Amsterdam. Cat. no. XXXVII, n. 25, III.

1932

Hollandsche Winterlandschappen uit de 17 de Eeuw, Rotterdamsche Kunstkring, Rotterdam, no. 52, fig. 52.

1949

Aus dem Besitz der Stiftung Sammlung Schloss Rohoncz, Villa Favorita, Lugano, n. 182, p. 56.

1988

Shedevrui Zapadnoevropeiskoi Zhivopisi XVI-XVII vv. iz Sobraniya Thyssen-Bornemisza, Novosibirsk, Picture Gallery. n. 21, p. 52, Col. ill. p. 53.

  • -Heinemann, R.J.: Aus dem Besitz der Stiftung Sammlung Schloss Rohoncz: Ausstellung in der Villa Favorita, Castagnola/Lugano, Bucher, 1949. n. 182, p. 56.

  • -The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. Catalogue. Villa  Favorita, Castagnola, Lugano, Ticino, 1969, n. 232. Plate 174.p. 251.

  • -Gaskell, I.: Seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish painting. Sammlung Thyssen-Bornemisza. Catalogue.  London, Ed. Philip Wilson Publishers for Sotheby’s Publications, 1989. Cat. 99. P. 422. (Listed as: Imitator of Aert van der Neer, Winter landscape)

Expert report

Aert van der Neer painted winter landscapes from at least the early 1640 onwards. The present work is in the style associated by both Stechow and Bachmann with the 1650, that is, with a frozen river receding between two banks with objects on or near the bank in the immediate foreground. In composition it can be compared with works such as the Winter landscape of 1655 in The Hague and a similar ice scene in Luton Hoo. The present canvas, however, qualifies for inclusion amongst those characterised by Stechow as “hard, awkward and almost crude”, qualities which has explained by suggesting that the pictures belonged to the artist’s later years-the 1670-when his powers are thought to have been in decline. The perspective of the buildings is laboured and erroneous, as is that of the log pile in the left foreground. The work lacks the colouristic harmony and aerial perspective derived from close atmospheric observation which characterises the finest winter scenes of his maturity. Furthermore, there is no compelling reason to assume that Van der Neer-who is mentioned as an innkeeper from 1659 until his bankruptcy in 1662-continued to paint throughout his life. Some of the poor-quality paintings attributed to him are likely to be the work of imitators and copyists and these may include the present canvas.

According to Goudstikker’s 1929 catalogue this canvas was in the Schönborn-Buchheim collection. lf so it is probably the work mentioned by Hofstede de Groot as hung too high to be adequately described.

Ivan Gaskell

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