Dunes by the Sea
Jacob van Ruisdael·1648
Historical Context
Dunes by the Sea of 1648 is among Jacob van Ruisdael's earliest confirmed works, painted when he was probably nineteen or twenty years old in Haarlem. The low, sandy dunes of the North Sea coast, familiar terrain for a Haarlem-born painter who grew up near those very shores, were among the most characteristic features of the Dutch landscape and a subject his predecessors Jan van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael had already made their own. What distinguishes this early Ruisdael from those predecessors is the quality of observational intensity — a sharper attention to the specific textures of sand, sparse vegetation, and overcast light. Already in this earliest work the young painter was transforming the tonal, low-key tradition he inherited into something with greater atmospheric weight, a development that would culminate within a decade in the dramatic, emotionally charged landscapes for which he became famous.
Technical Analysis
The small panel captures the spare beauty of the dune landscape with Ruisdael's characteristic attention to natural detail. The sandy terrain is rendered in warm earth tones while the expansive sky provides dramatic contrast with varied cloud formations. The composition's horizontal emphasis and low viewpoint create a convincing sense of the flat coastal terrain.
Look Closer
- ◆The dune in the foreground is built up from layered diagonal strokes — sandy ochre over grey ground — creating the texture of compacted windblown sand.
- ◆A figure with a fishing net visible on the beach at the left is barely six brushstrokes — the most economical version of human presence.
- ◆The North Sea is suggested rather than described — a pale stripe between dune crest and sky horizon, the water identified by context not by detail.
- ◆Beach grasses at the dune's crest are painted in fine upward strokes — botanical specificity in the painting's most exposed and wind-exposed zone.
- ◆Van Ruisdael's sky is active even in this early work — cumulus building from the left with the patient inevitability of coastal weather.
Provenance
Richter Oelrich, Bremen, c. 1820; purchased 1928 by Bernhard Hausmann [1784-1873], Hanover;[1] private sale 1 October 1857 to King George V of Hanover [1819-1878];[2] by inheritance to his son, Ernest August II, Crown Prince of Hanover and 3rd Duke of Cumberland [1845-1923];[3] (his estate sale, Rudolph Lepke Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin, 31 March 1925, no. 63, sold for 16,500 Reichsmarks). art market, Düsseldorf. private collection, Cologne, in 1948; (Kunsthandel K. & V. Waterman, Amsterdam), in 1982; purchased 1983 by Norman and Suzanne Hascoe, Greenwich, Connecticut; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, New York, 4 June 2014, no. 38); (Richard Green Fine Paintings, London); purchased May 2017 by NGA. [1] See Joachim Petersen, _Bernhard Hausmann: Burger, Fabrikant, Kunstsammler_, Gottingen, 2009: 241: “The [four] landscapes by [Jacob van Ruisdael] were very highly regarded by Hausmann, especially ‘_Dunes by the Sea_’, purchased in 1828 in Bremen for 100 Thaler [then follows a quote, presumably from Hausmann]: 'Seit langem gekanntes kapital-Bild von erstem Range, von der seltensten Ausführung und Erhaltung' (Long since a well-known capital painting of the first order, of exceptional execution and preservation)." [2] On a small piece of wood, inserted at the lower center of the cradle on the reverse of the panel, is painted all in red a monogram of the initials GR, surmounted by a crown, with a small V below the initials. These are the initials of King George V of Hanover. See Petersen 2009, 182-183: “The complete collection of paintings was sold to [King George V of Hannover] on 1 October 1857 for the--according to Hausmann’s (very accurate) opinion, not high--price of 48,000 Thaler, payable in annual installments of 5,000 Thaler, but it was to remain in Hausmann’s house until further notice. … Until the death of Hausmann [13 May 1873], [the painting collection] stayed in his house and was open to the public as the ‘George V Collection of Paintings’.” The painting’s owner and location was listed as “Hannover, Hausmann” by G. Parthey in _Deutscher Bildersaal – Verzeichniss der in Deutschland vorhandenen Oelbilder verstorbener Maler aller Schulen_, 2 vols. in 4, Berlin, 1864: 2:461, no. 135, which thus identified the work’s location, but not correctly its owner. [3 From 1866 until 1893, the royal collection was confiscated by the State of Prussia following the annexation of Hanover, and placed under the control of the Fideikommiss-Galerie des Gesamthauses Braunschwieg und Lüneburg. Despite the confiscation, from 1866 until Hausmann’s death in May 1873, the collection remained at his residence. For the timeline of the confiscation, see Helmut R. Leppien, “Die Bilder der Bürger,” in _Verschollener Ruhm – Bilder aus dem Depot der Landesgalerie Hannover zeigen den Kunstgeschmack des 19. Jahrhunderts_. Exh. cat. Kunstverein Hannover, 1975: 6, 9. From 1893, the painting was on long-term loan to the Provinzial-Museum Hannover as part of the “Cumberland-Galerie.” See _Katalog der zur Fideikommiss-Galerie des Gesamthauses Braunschwieg und Lüneburg gehörigen Sammlung von Gemälden und Skulpturen im Provinzial-Museum_, Hanover, 1905: 118, no. 357; https://hdl.handle.net/2027/gri.ark:/13960/t0vq6882x, accessed 30 June 2017. In _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):285, no. 925, Cornelis Hofstede de Groot erroneously lists the painting as actually belonging to the Provinzial-Museum instead of Ernst August II, the Duke of Cumberland.
