Aert van der Neer

Captain C. T. Tower;

London, Sotheby's, 13 December 1978, lot 62;

Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 11 March 1980, lot 98;

Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 17 November 1982, lot 425;

Anonymous sale ("The Property of Another Owner"), New York, Sotheby's Parke Bernet, 9 June 1983, lot 41;

Where acquired by the present collectors.

H. Fuchs, "Auktionen in Wien," in Weltkunst 50, no. 5 (1 March 1980), p. 570, reproduced;

D. Miller, Art and Life in Northern Europe, 1500-1800: The Gilbert Collection, exhibition catalogue, Saint Petersburg 1990, p. 43, reproduced fig. 18;

W. Schultz, Aert van der Neer, Doornspijk 2002, p. 284, cat. no. 653, reproduced pl. 48; 

Story & Symbol: Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Collection of Dr. Gordon and Adele Gilbert, exhibition catalogue, J. Hanson (ed.), Saint Petersburg 2011, p. 66, cat. no. 24, reproduced.

Saint Petersburg, Florida, Museum of Fine Arts, Art and Life in Northern Europe, 1500-1800: The Gilbert Collection, 15 December 1990 - 24 February 1991, no. 18;

Saint Petersburg, Florida, Museum of Fine Arts, Story & Symbol: Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Collection of Dr. Gordon and Adele Gilbert, 17 September - 4 December 2011, no. 24.

Celebrated for his poetic landscapes, Aert van der Neer captures a serene riverscape in this luminous nocturne. Likely painted in the late 1640s or early 1650s—when he focused almost exclusively on night scenes, which comprise nearly half of his oeuvre—this lyrical and elegiac work exemplifies the quiet beauty that defines his finest paintings. A sweeping shoreline recedes into the distance across a broad estuary, while a full moon, filtered through a veil of clouds, casts a silvery glow across the water, gently illuminating the boats and figures below. Van der Neer’s evocations of mood, by way of depictions of natural grandeur, anticipate the later fascination with the picturesque and sublime, making him an important source of inspiration for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century landscape painters.