Year 1660s | Artist Jacob van Ruisdael | |
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Dimensions 98.5 cm × 85 cm (38.8 in × 33 in) Location National Gallery, London Similar A Landscape with a Rui, Rough Sea at a Jetty, View of Bentheim Castle, Two Watermills and an O, Waterfall in a Mountain | ||
A Waterfall in a Rocky Landscape (c. 1660s) is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the collection of the National Gallery.
This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1911, who wrote; "239. LANDSCAPE WITH WATERFALL. The waterfall fills the whole foreground, rushing down over rocks from a broad basin. In the left foreground a fallen tree hangs over the water. In the left middle distance is a wooden bridge, with firs and leafy trees to the left of it. To the right on the bank are leafy trees, one of which has fallen and hangs over the water. Behind the trees on a high bank is a cottage, with firs to the left of it. Dark cloudy sky. [Pendant to 240.]
Signed in full, "J. Ruysdael" ; canvas, 40 1/2 inches by 34 inches. Engraved in mezzotint by J. G. Prestel. Sale. Count von Brabeck and Count Andreas von Stolberg of Soder, Hanover, October 31, 1859, No. 235 (£1187 : 15 : 6, for the National Gallery). In the National Gallery, London, 1906 catalogue, No. 627."
A Waterfall in a Rocky Landscape is very similar to other paintings he made between 1660 and 1670. Although the depicted landscape is of Scandinavia, Ruisdael was never recorded visiting foreign countries beyond Germany. From the middle of the 1650s he started to make a series of pictures of waterfalls over boulders, surrounded by high pine trees, inspired by the work of the artist Allaert van Everdingen, who had visited Norway and Sweden in 1644.