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Dimensions: 54.3 by 67.6 cm.; 21 3/8 by 26 5/8 in.
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Provenance: PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION FORMED BY ENRICO FATTORINI, SOLD BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES OF HIS DAUGHTER, THE LATE MRS MARGARET NAYLOR
P.J.F. Vrancken, of Lokeren;
His deceased sale, Lokeren, near Antwerp, Van Regemorter, 15ff. May 1838, lot 3, for 7,300 Francs to Nieuwenhuys;
With C.J. Nieuwenhuys, by whom sold to
Charles Brind;
His deceased sale, London, Christie's, 10-12 May 1849, lot 69, for £294 to Norton;
George Field, London, by 1857 and probably by 1856, until after 1871;
By inheritance to Barclay Field, Berkeley Square, London, by 1888;
His deceased sale, London, Christie's, 10 June 1893, lot 32, for £1,785 to Tooth;
Sir Samuel Montagu, Bt., by 1894, later 1st Baron Swaythling, until after 1928;
By inheritance to Stuart Albert Samuel Montagu, 3rd Baron Swaythling, Townhill Park, Southampton;
His sale, London, Christie's, 12 July 1946, lot 34, for 2,600 Guineas to Duits, on behalf of Enrico Fattorini;
Enrico Fattorini;
From whom inherited by his daughter, Mrs. G.E. Naylor.
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Exhibited: London, British Institution, 1840 (lent by Charles Brind);
London, British Institution, 1848, no. 163 (lent by Charles Brind);
Probably London, Marlborough House, 1856 (see Waagen under Literature below);
Manchester, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 1857, no. 957 (lent by George Field);
London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, Winter 1871, no. 64 (lent by George Field);
London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, Winter 1888, no. 111 (lent by Barclay Field);
London, Guildhall, Loan Exhibition, 1894, no. 48 (lent by "A." Montagu);
London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of Dutch Art 1450-1900, 1929, no. 168;
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, on loan, -2004.
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Literature: Possibly J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. VI, London 1835, no. 111;
J. Smith, A Supplement to the Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. IX, London 1842, p. 701, no. 59;
G. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, vol. IV, London 1857, p. 194 ("Very original, and of rare power of colouring and masterly breadth of treatment");
W. Bürger (E.-J..-T. Thoré), Trésors d'Art en Angleterre, Paris 1865, p. 296;
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. IV, London 1912, p. 52, no. 152, identical with pp. 56, 59, nos. 163 & 171;
J. Rosenberg, Jacob van Ruisdael, Berlin 1928, p. 79, no. 107;
K.E. Simon, Jacob van Ruisdael, diss., Berlin 1927, reprinted with additions and corrections, Berlin 1930, p. 81;
N. MacLaren, National Gallery Catalogues. The Dutch School, London 1960, pp. 359, 360, note 8;
S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael, exhibition catalogue, The Hague, Mauritshuis, 1 October 1981-3 January 1982, p. 81, under no. 23, reproduced;
E.J. Walford, Jacob van Ruisdael and the Perception of Landscape, New Haven & London 1991, p. 89;
N. MacLaren and C. Brown, National Gallery Catalogues. The Dutch School, revised and expanded, London 1991, vol. I, pp. 384, 385, note 9;
S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael. A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven & London 2001, p. 135, no. 115, reproduced, p. 137, under no. 117.
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Notes: This and several other paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael of water-mills are almost certainly inspired by sites that he visited on his journey to the Eastern Netherlands and Westphalia in the early 1650s. In all just under twenty paintings by Ruisdael of water-mills of a type found in this area have survived, and while some of them depict a single overshot mill from different angles, and another a group of mills probably based on a drawing of mills at Schütterhof near Bentheim, a group of eight or nine paintings appear to be inspired by pairs of undershot water-mills of similar appearance. Two likely sites have been proposed: on the estate of Singraven near Denekamp; or at Haaksbergen, near Enschede, in the early 1650s. Both sites are near each other in the province of Overijssel in the Eastern Netherlands, and neither is far from Bentheim, which Ruisdael visited on the same trip (see Seymour Slive, under Literature, 2001, pp. 130-144, introductory remarks, and cat. nos. 110-115, 117, 119, 122-3, 126, especially the text to no. 117). Some have hilly settings, and some are reversed, but in each one he changed at least minor details of the architecture. This can best be exemplified by comparing the two most similar pictures in the group: the Fattorini picture and a larger version on canvas in Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum (see Fig. 1; Slive, op. cit., pp. 138-9, no. 119, reproduced). The Getty picture is dated 1653, and is the only dated painting of the group. Seymour Slive suggests that the present picture dates from around the time of the Getty picture, or slightly later.
Of Ruisdael's views of water-mills, only these two, a painting in the National Gallery, London, and two others with the building to the right in ruins, in Strasbourg and Vienna (Slive, op. cit., pp. 136-7, 141, 144, nos. 117, 122, 126, all reproduced), appear to depict the same pairs of mills, one with twin wheels, the other with a single wheel, albeit with numerous minor differences. In view of Ruisdael's unmatched skill in creating landscapes inspired only indirectly by observation, but appearing as real as if painted directly from nature, they can however only be said to be perhaps the same mill in Ruisdael's imagination.
Some of Ruisdael's paintings of mills were clearly based on particular drawings; this is the case for the four views of a single overshot water-mill for which four drawings survive. A drawing in Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (Slive, op. cit, p. 498, no. D7, reproduced), may be related to other paintings in the group of paired undershot mills, but is not directly related to the Fattorini painting.
Professor Slive lists four variants of the present work all of which are inferior, and none of which are likely to be autograph.
This lot and the Jan Steen (lot 21 in this sale) share the same provenance from 1846 until now. Both were bought in the Lord Swaythling sale in 1946 by Duits, who bought no other lots in the sale, and who was probably buying on behalf of Enrico Fattorini.
