A Waterfall
Jacob van Ruisdael (Haarlem 1628 - Amsterdam 1682)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1660 - 1682
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1000 x 820 mm
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486803
Caption
Horace Walpole linked Lord Egremont with a group of rich collectors whose ‘glaring extravagance is the constant high price given for pictures’ and ‘who care not what they give’. The 2nd Earl’s picture collection is one of the best documented of the mid-eighteenth century, and it is possible to establish that most of the prices were in fact reasonable. ...Ruisdael’s Waterfall cost less than £10.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, A Waterfall, by Jacob van Ruisdael (Haarlem 1628 - Amsterdam 1682), sgned: J v Ruisdael (JVR in monogram; the signature appears to have been strengthened or over-written). A torrent in the foreground with russet trees beyond left and a tower on a crag in the right background.
Provenance
Acquired by the 2nd Earl of Egremont (1710-1763) at the sale of Robert Bragge, Longford, 6-11 March 1748/9, second day, lot 27 for £8.8s Thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by H.M.Treasury.
Credit line
Petworth House, The Egremont Collection (acquired in lieu of tax by HM Treasury in 1956 and subsequently transferred to the National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Signed in monogram: JVR
Makers and roles
Jacob van Ruisdael (Haarlem 1628 - Amsterdam 1682), artist