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Landscape with Bridge, Cattle, and Figures Slider Image 1
Landscape with Bridge, Cattle, and Figures Slider Image 2

detail of bridge on right

Landscape with Bridge, Cattle, and Figures Slider Image 3

detail of figure on left

Landscape with Bridge, Cattle, and Figures Slider Image 4

zoomed detail of figure on left

Jacob van Ruisdael

Dutch, 1628/1629–1682

Landscape with Bridge, Cattle, and Figures

c. 1660

The windswept countryside in Ruisdael’s painting looks entirely natural. Clouds float in the sky, casting shadows over trees, rocky crags, and a river, over which people and animals make a somewhat hazardous journey. Ruisdael carefully organized the composition to lead our eyes across the painting’s surface and included certain features for their subtle symbolism—the dead tree and unstable bridge are intended to remind us of the passage of time and the unpredictability of life.

Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 37 5/8 x 51 1/16 in. (95.6 x 129.7 cm)
Object Number 1955.29
Acquisition Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status On View

Image Caption

Jacob van Ruisdael, Landscape with Bridge, Cattle, and Figures, c. 1660, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.29

Select Bibliography

Seymour Slive. Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, Drawings and Etchings. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. A Catalogue of Pictures of the Dutch and Flemish Schools lent to the South Kensington Museum by Lord Francis Pelham Clinton-Hope. Exh. Cat. London: South Kensington Museum, 1891. Highly Important Collection of Pictures by Dutch Masters. Auction catalogue, sale July 4, 1919. London: Christie, Manson & Woods Ltd., 1919. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four: First Two Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four & Exhibit Seven. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1958. Hope, Lord Francis. The Hope Collection of Pictures of the Dutch and Flemish Schools: with descriptions reprinted from the catalogue published in 1891 by the Science and Art Department of the South Kensington Museum. London: Chiswick Press, 1898. Rosenberg, Jakob. Jacob van Ruisdael. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1928. Comstock, Helen. "The Connoisseur in America: The Clark Collection Opens" in Connoisseur CXXXVI, no. 550 (December 1955): 305–10. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Brooks, John H. Highlights: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1981. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Sutton, Peter C. A Guide to Dutch Art in America. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. and The Netherlands-America Amity Trust, 1986. Sutton, Peter C. Northern European Paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century. Philadelphia: The Museum, 1990. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Kern, Steven, et al. The Clark: Selections from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996. Held, Julius S. "Old Masters in the Clark Collection, Part I: Paintings." The Magazine Antiques 62, no. 4 (October 1997): 504–9. Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, based on the work of John Smith. Catalogue raisonné. 8 vols. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd, 1907–27. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Paintings on Exhibition, July 1968. Exhibition brochure. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1968. Stamper, John. Catalogue Entry for Ruisdael's "Landscape with Bridge, Cattle, and Figures". Course paper, Art History: Graduate Program in the History of Art, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 1975. Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. Volume 6. London: Smith and Son, 1835. Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art of Great Britain: being an account of the chief collections of paintings, drawings, sculptures, illuminated mss. &c &c. London: J. Murray, 18547.

Provenance

Hope Collection of Deepdene, as early as 1835; Lord Francis Pelham-Clinton Hope, 1891 at latest, by descent; sale, Lord Hope's collection, 1898; either Asher Wertheimer or Otto Gutekunst of Colnaghi's (the two men split the sale of Lord Hope's collection), 1898; Ludwig Neumann, London, by 1919; Colnaghi's; M. Knoedler & Co., London, by 1921; Robert Sterling Clark, by purchase in private sale (January 16, 1922-1955); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.

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