Lot 3027* - A208 Old Master Paintings - Friday, 22. March 2024, 02.00 PM
HERCULES PIETERSZ. SEGERS
(Haarlem c. 1589–c. 1640 The Hague)
Woodland path. 1618–20.
Oil on canvas laid on panel.
16 × 22.4 cm.
Provenance:
- Probably collection of Stadtholder Frederick Heinrich von Oranien-Nassau (1584–1647) and Amalie zu Solms-Braunfels (1602–1675), 1632.
- Probably collection of Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg (1620–1688).
- Collection of Frederick III., Elector of Brandenburg / Frederick I., King of Prussia (1657–1713), from at least 1699 until 1713 (label verso for Schloss Oranienburg 1709).
- Collection of Frederick William I. (1688–1740), Elector of Brandenburg and King of Prussia, 1713 until 1740.
- Collection of Frederick II the Great (1712–1786), King of Prussia, from 1740.
- Collection of August Wilhelm of Prussia (1722–1758), from 1742–43.
- Removed from Schloss Oranienburg as part of a group of 250 paintings, between 1745 and 1800.
- Collection of Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1756–1836).
- By descent, collection of his son, Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1803–1854), Dresden.
- Sale Dresden, 2.5.1838, no lot number (sold for 1 Thaler, 7 Groschen to Johan Christian Dahl).
- Collection of the painter Johan Christian Claussen Dahl (1788–1857), Dresden, 1838–1839 (with handwritten label verso).
- Via brokerage by H. T. Heftye (Dahl’s agent) to Andreas Schram Olsen (1791–1845), Larvik, Norway, 18.3.1839.
- Collection of Johan Ludwig Malthe (1807–1896), from December 1845.
- Collection of Malthe’s nephew, Alexander Ludwig Normann Malthe (1845–1928), Kristiana (Oslo) and Eidsvoll, Akerhus.
- Collection of Malthe’s niece, Alfhilde Malthe (1876–1961), Lesja, Oppland.
- Auction of the estate of Alfhilde Malthe, Lesja (Bjorkhaug), 20.8.1962, no lot number (sold to the auctioneer Ole Fagersand).
- Collection of Ole Fagersand (1909–2002), ‘Lennsmann’ von Dombas, Norway, from 1962.
- By descent, private collection, until 2003.
- Sale Blomqvist, Oslo, Collection of the descendants of Ole Fagersand et al., 16.12.2003, Lot 1212 (as European school of the 19th/20th century).
- Acquired at the above auction, private collection, Norway, since 2003.
Exhibited:
Amsterdam 2016/2017, Hercules Segers, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 7.10.2016–8.1.2017, no. P1.
Literature:
- Oranienburg inventory, 1699, p. 594, no. 207 (‘Eine Landschaft durch einen Waldt im schwartzen Rahm’).
- Oranienburg inventory, 1743 (‘Eine Landtschaft, durch einen Wald, in schwartzem Rahm, von Segers’).
- Huigen Leeflang and Pieter Roelofs (ed.): Hercules Segers: Painter, Etcher, exh.cat. Amsterdam 2016, pp. 246–251, no. P1 (also mentioned on pp. 13, 57, 99, 113, 125, 144, fig. 167 and 168, pp. 145, 214–215, 253, 261, 271, 279 and 337).
- Emanuel von Baeyer: Hercules Segers. Painter, Printmaker, Experimentalist, Art Dealer. Woodland Path, Cologne 2022.
The painting offered here at auction is a significant addition to the small body of oil paintings by the important artist of the Golden Age, Hercules Segers, which was presented to the public for the first time as part of the major Segers retrospective in 2016/2017. This depiction of a winding forest path is the only surviving forest landscape by Segers, one of a large number of paintings by him mentioned in old sources. The influence of the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo (1544–1607) was of great importance in shaping the mysterious atmosphere that pervades the work of Segers, his most important pupil.
The work, published for the first time as part of a major retrospective in 2017, has an important provenance. Documented in several early inventories, its recent rediscovery in a Norwegian private collection is the result of art-historical detective work and fortunate circumstances. The work, which was rediscovered 20 years ago, boasts a provenance sequence that is probably the best of all the fully acknowledged paintings by Segers.
Segers' authorship is evident not only from the technique used and the similarity to his prints, but also from the 17th century inscription of his name on the reverse of the panel and its mention in old inventories.
Technical and stylistic features
On a canvas barely larger than an A5 format, Segers painted a winding sandy path with cart tracks disappearing between trees with intertwined branches and twigs into a deep forest. Rays of sunlight penetrate the dense canopy of leaves. A small house on the left, its roof barely visible through the foliage, marks the only trace of civilisation in this natural idyll. This forest scene was not painted from nature but was the product of the artist's imagination. As noted in the 2016/2017 exhibition catalogue (see literature), Segers made a preparatory underpainting consisting of white pigment dots that roughly outline the path in the picture, applied directly to the painting support, as in his works in the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur in Münster (inv. no. 1821LG), in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (inv. no. SK-A-3120) and in the Mauritshuis in The Hague (inv. no. 1033, see exh.cat. 2016/2017, nos. P6-P8). He then painted the scene wet-on-wet in the colours green, brown, ochre, black and white, accentuating it here and there with lead white or lead-tin yellow. This method of outlining is unique to Segers and clearly proves the authorship of the painting. No other artist is known to have used this specific technique.
The use of a canvas as the primary painting support can be found in earlier works (exh.cat. 2016/2017, no. P2-P6). Shortly after it was painted, the work was mounted on an oak panel, probably in order to reinforce it. This, according to a dendrochronological report by Prof. Dr Peter Klein dated 17 April 2016, came from a tree felled around 1611–21. Taking into account the usual drying process, it was probably used as a support from 1623 onwards. Segers also used this method in a signed landscape with a lake, which is in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (inv. no. 2383, see exh.cat. 2016/2017, no. P2).
Comparable compositions with a low horizon, a path leading into the unknown, with gnarled, entwined trees and patches of sunlight falling through a dense forest can be found in various engravings by Segers, for example in a drypoint etching in the British Museum in London (inv. no. S.5532, see exh.cat. HB37). However, no other landscape painting by Seger has survived which depicts only the forest, which means this work is particularly rare. At the time, this type of forest landscape was also considered much more innovative and modern than valley and panoramic landscapes, and it seems that Segers initially trialled this new approach in prints.
Due to its similarity to the works mentioned above, the forest landscape offered here can be dated to around 1618–20.
A much-acclaimed artist
The art historians Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann and Jaap van der Veen have conducted extensive research into the life of the artist Hercules Segers. It is now known that Segers was born in Haarlem in 1589 or 1590 to Protestant parents who had fled from Ghent. The family later moved to Amsterdam, where Segers was probably apprenticed to the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo, who had also fled from Flanders. In Coninxloo's workshop, Segers would have been influenced by the works of art known to have been collected by his master, including paintings by Joachim Patinir (1483–1524) and Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525–1569) – two artists who, together with Coninxloo himself, contributed significantly to the development of landscape painting as a genre in its own right.
In an early account of his life by Rembrandt's pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–1678), Segers is portrayed as a misunderstood artist: far ahead of his time, he was rejected during his lifetime and his brilliance was only recognised after his death. This version of the artist's life, which corresponds to the literary stereotype of the poor, under-appreciated genius, is refuted by documentary evidence which suggests that Segers was highly regarded by his colleagues. In fact, Rembrandt (1606–1669) owned eight of his paintings. His purchase of a large house on the Lindengracht in Amsterdam in 1619 proves that his art brought him considerable wealth, and the purchase of two Segers landscapes by Frederick Hendrik and Amalia van Solms in the early 1630s indicates that he was equally well received by the nobility. Segers nevertheless got into financial difficulties and was forced to sell his house in Amsterdam in 1630, moving to Utrecht for a short time and then to The Hague, which is said to have been his last place of residence.
Hercules Segers was one of the most prolific artistic minds of his time and created landscapes of astonishing originality. Using a range of unusual techniques, he etched colourful landscapes, seascapes, and biblical scenes. His small œuvre comprises 182 prints, which vary greatly in composition, and 19 paintings. In his prints, he was bold in his experimentation, in particular with a printing method he developed, in which he individually re-coloured and partially altered each copy, making every one of them unique.
Segers, who is now recognised as the most innovative printmaker of the first wave of the Dutch Golden Age and one of the most original graphic artists of all time, saw himself, and was seen by his contemporaries, first and foremost as a painter. As has recently been established, his prints were in most cases created after his oil paintings, which in turn formed the basis for his radical, highly innovative etchings.
A complete provenance
The exceptionally well-documented provenance of this painting can be traced back to the 17th century. The label on the back of the panel provides a wealth of information about the painting's aristocratic provenance: the words ‘Oranienbourg / Im monath Septbr / 1709’ are written in elegant script around the stamped coat of arms of Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, later King Frederick I of Prussia. Similar inscriptions in black or red ink with the same coat of arms can also be found on other paintings from the electoral collection. They were applied to the paintings listed in the inventory of Oranienburg Palace, 30 km north of Berlin, in the autumn of 1709 (see H. Sander: Schloss Oranienburg. Ein Inventar aus dem Jahre 1743, Berlin/Brandenburg 2001, p. 29). The name ‘...les Segers’ is written in black under the label, indicating that from at least 1709 it was known that Hercules Segers had produced this forest scene. The inventory from 1709 has not survived, but the painting is already listed in the inventory from 1699 as ‘207. A landscape through a forest in a black frame’ (the number ‘207’ at the bottom left of the canvas, which was glazed over during restoration in 2016, refers to this inventory) and in the one from 1743 as ‘A country scene, through a forest, in a black frame, by Segers’. At the time, the painting hung in the King of Prussia's antechamber, as indicated by the note ‘1743 R. No:8’. Both inventories mention a second forest landscape by Segers, which also hung in the palace from the seventeenth century (probably as a counterpart) and is now lost.
It is not known for certain exactly when the painting came to Oranienburg. It is assumed that Jan Ruijscher (1625–1675), court painter to the Elector of Brandenburg and a successor to Seger, who was nicknamed ‘the young Hercules’, played a role in the acquisition. This would mean that both forest scenes were acquired a generation earlier, around 1657–62, by Frederick's father, Frederick William (1620–1688), the Great Elector. However, it is equally possible that the Amsterdam-based dealer Johannes de Renialme (1600–1657) played a role in the transaction. In a letter dated 19 August 1650, he offered Frederick William a rare landscape by Segers in the same format as a beach scene by Jan Porcellis (1582–1632), which was already in Frederick's collection (see John Michael Montias: Art at Auction in 17th-century Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2002, p. 137). Frederick William was married to Countess Louise Henriette of Nassau (1627–1667), daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau, and Amalie zu Solms-Braunfels (1602–1675) and spent the years 1634 to 1638 in the Netherlands, where he developed a taste for art at the court of The Hague (see Claudia Sommer: Niederländische Einflüsse auf die Landeskultivierung und Kunstentfaltung in Brandenburg von 1640 bis 1740, in: exh.cat. Onder den Oranje boom: Dutch art and culture in the 17th and 18th centuries at German princely courts, 18.4.–18.7.1999, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Museum, Krefeld / Schloss Oranienburg, Oranienburg / Palast Het Loo, Appeldoorn, Munich 1999, catalogue volume, p. 205). There he may have had the opportunity to admire the two landscapes by Hercules Segers mentioned in the 1632 inventory of the Prince of Orange's possessions ‘twee stucken schilderiën, sijnde landtschappen, deur Hercules Zegers gemaeckt.’ (see S. W. A. Drossaers and Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer: Inventarissen van de inboedels in de verblijven van de Oranjes en daarmede gelijk te stellen stukken (1567–1795), 's-Gravenhaage 1974, vol. I, p. 230) and may have received it in 1646 through his marriage to Princess Louise Henriette of Orange-Nassau (1627–1667). A final possibility is that Frederick William acquired the works directly from Segers or his circle.
After several generations of aristocratic ownership, the painting left the palace when the Electoral Collection was dissolved between 1743 and 1800. A short time later, it entered the collection of the Leipzig master builder and councillor Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1756–1836) and his son of the same name, Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1803–1854), who worked as a lawyer and historian in Dresden.
In 1838, the painting was acquired by the Norwegian landscape painter Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857) at an auction in Dresden (see National Library Oslo, Johan Christian Dahl, edition book (ms.), entry dated 2 May 1838 (‘A landscape without frame allegedly by Segers’). At this point, the attribution to Hercules Segers was no longer known. In fact, Dahl mistakenly noted an attribution to the Antwerp flower painter Daniel Seghers (1590–1661) on a label on the reverse. Dahl must have been particularly impressed by Segers' painting technique and the dense rendering of the landscape, which was unusual for the early 17th century. He was particularly interested in seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting and in his early years made copies after Jacob van Ruisdael (1628–1682), whose influence is clearly visible in his later work.
According to Dahl's diary, his agent, H. T. Heftye, sold the painting to Andreas Schram Olsen (1791–1845) in Larvik, Norway, around 1839. After Olsen’s death in 1845, the painting became the property of the collector Johan Ludwig Malthe (1807–1896), probably as one of five paintings that Malthe acquired either at Schram Olsen's estate auction in Kristiana (Oslo) in December 1845, or directly from the auctioneer (see exh.cat. 2016/2017, footnote 7). His nephew, the doctor and art collector Alexander Ludwig Normann Malthe (1845–1928) and his niece Alfhilde Malthe (1876–1961) subsequently inherited the painting.
With the auction of the Malthe estate in 1962, the painting came into the possession of the auctioneer Ole Fagersand (1909–2002) and his descendants. A Norwegian private collector acquired the painting in 2003 at the estate auction of Ole Fagersand's heirs, where the painting was erroneously listed as 19th/20th century European school. At that point, the painting was still displayed in the frame with the typical ornamentation favoured by Johan Christian Dahl, which became known as the Dahl frame.
In 2007, the painting underwent a series of scientific tests and art-historical research was conducted. This led to the rediscovery of painting's authorship and ultimately to its inclusion in the major retrospective of the artist Hercules Segers at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam in 2016/2017.
- Probably collection of Stadtholder Frederick Heinrich von Oranien-Nassau (1584–1647) and Amalie zu Solms-Braunfels (1602–1675), 1632.
- Probably collection of Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg (1620–1688).
- Collection of Frederick III., Elector of Brandenburg / Frederick I., King of Prussia (1657–1713), from at least 1699 until 1713 (label verso for Schloss Oranienburg 1709).
- Collection of Frederick William I. (1688–1740), Elector of Brandenburg and King of Prussia, 1713 until 1740.
- Collection of Frederick II the Great (1712–1786), King of Prussia, from 1740.
- Collection of August Wilhelm of Prussia (1722–1758), from 1742–43.
- Removed from Schloss Oranienburg as part of a group of 250 paintings, between 1745 and 1800.
- Collection of Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1756–1836).
- By descent, collection of his son, Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1803–1854), Dresden.
- Sale Dresden, 2.5.1838, no lot number (sold for 1 Thaler, 7 Groschen to Johan Christian Dahl).
- Collection of the painter Johan Christian Claussen Dahl (1788–1857), Dresden, 1838–1839 (with handwritten label verso).
- Via brokerage by H. T. Heftye (Dahl’s agent) to Andreas Schram Olsen (1791–1845), Larvik, Norway, 18.3.1839.
- Collection of Johan Ludwig Malthe (1807–1896), from December 1845.
- Collection of Malthe’s nephew, Alexander Ludwig Normann Malthe (1845–1928), Kristiana (Oslo) and Eidsvoll, Akerhus.
- Collection of Malthe’s niece, Alfhilde Malthe (1876–1961), Lesja, Oppland.
- Auction of the estate of Alfhilde Malthe, Lesja (Bjorkhaug), 20.8.1962, no lot number (sold to the auctioneer Ole Fagersand).
- Collection of Ole Fagersand (1909–2002), ‘Lennsmann’ von Dombas, Norway, from 1962.
- By descent, private collection, until 2003.
- Sale Blomqvist, Oslo, Collection of the descendants of Ole Fagersand et al., 16.12.2003, Lot 1212 (as European school of the 19th/20th century).
- Acquired at the above auction, private collection, Norway, since 2003.
Exhibited:
Amsterdam 2016/2017, Hercules Segers, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 7.10.2016–8.1.2017, no. P1.
Literature:
- Oranienburg inventory, 1699, p. 594, no. 207 (‘Eine Landschaft durch einen Waldt im schwartzen Rahm’).
- Oranienburg inventory, 1743 (‘Eine Landtschaft, durch einen Wald, in schwartzem Rahm, von Segers’).
- Huigen Leeflang and Pieter Roelofs (ed.): Hercules Segers: Painter, Etcher, exh.cat. Amsterdam 2016, pp. 246–251, no. P1 (also mentioned on pp. 13, 57, 99, 113, 125, 144, fig. 167 and 168, pp. 145, 214–215, 253, 261, 271, 279 and 337).
- Emanuel von Baeyer: Hercules Segers. Painter, Printmaker, Experimentalist, Art Dealer. Woodland Path, Cologne 2022.
The painting offered here at auction is a significant addition to the small body of oil paintings by the important artist of the Golden Age, Hercules Segers, which was presented to the public for the first time as part of the major Segers retrospective in 2016/2017. This depiction of a winding forest path is the only surviving forest landscape by Segers, one of a large number of paintings by him mentioned in old sources. The influence of the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo (1544–1607) was of great importance in shaping the mysterious atmosphere that pervades the work of Segers, his most important pupil.
The work, published for the first time as part of a major retrospective in 2017, has an important provenance. Documented in several early inventories, its recent rediscovery in a Norwegian private collection is the result of art-historical detective work and fortunate circumstances. The work, which was rediscovered 20 years ago, boasts a provenance sequence that is probably the best of all the fully acknowledged paintings by Segers.
Segers' authorship is evident not only from the technique used and the similarity to his prints, but also from the 17th century inscription of his name on the reverse of the panel and its mention in old inventories.
Technical and stylistic features
On a canvas barely larger than an A5 format, Segers painted a winding sandy path with cart tracks disappearing between trees with intertwined branches and twigs into a deep forest. Rays of sunlight penetrate the dense canopy of leaves. A small house on the left, its roof barely visible through the foliage, marks the only trace of civilisation in this natural idyll. This forest scene was not painted from nature but was the product of the artist's imagination. As noted in the 2016/2017 exhibition catalogue (see literature), Segers made a preparatory underpainting consisting of white pigment dots that roughly outline the path in the picture, applied directly to the painting support, as in his works in the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur in Münster (inv. no. 1821LG), in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (inv. no. SK-A-3120) and in the Mauritshuis in The Hague (inv. no. 1033, see exh.cat. 2016/2017, nos. P6-P8). He then painted the scene wet-on-wet in the colours green, brown, ochre, black and white, accentuating it here and there with lead white or lead-tin yellow. This method of outlining is unique to Segers and clearly proves the authorship of the painting. No other artist is known to have used this specific technique.
The use of a canvas as the primary painting support can be found in earlier works (exh.cat. 2016/2017, no. P2-P6). Shortly after it was painted, the work was mounted on an oak panel, probably in order to reinforce it. This, according to a dendrochronological report by Prof. Dr Peter Klein dated 17 April 2016, came from a tree felled around 1611–21. Taking into account the usual drying process, it was probably used as a support from 1623 onwards. Segers also used this method in a signed landscape with a lake, which is in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (inv. no. 2383, see exh.cat. 2016/2017, no. P2).
Comparable compositions with a low horizon, a path leading into the unknown, with gnarled, entwined trees and patches of sunlight falling through a dense forest can be found in various engravings by Segers, for example in a drypoint etching in the British Museum in London (inv. no. S.5532, see exh.cat. HB37). However, no other landscape painting by Seger has survived which depicts only the forest, which means this work is particularly rare. At the time, this type of forest landscape was also considered much more innovative and modern than valley and panoramic landscapes, and it seems that Segers initially trialled this new approach in prints.
Due to its similarity to the works mentioned above, the forest landscape offered here can be dated to around 1618–20.
A much-acclaimed artist
The art historians Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann and Jaap van der Veen have conducted extensive research into the life of the artist Hercules Segers. It is now known that Segers was born in Haarlem in 1589 or 1590 to Protestant parents who had fled from Ghent. The family later moved to Amsterdam, where Segers was probably apprenticed to the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo, who had also fled from Flanders. In Coninxloo's workshop, Segers would have been influenced by the works of art known to have been collected by his master, including paintings by Joachim Patinir (1483–1524) and Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525–1569) – two artists who, together with Coninxloo himself, contributed significantly to the development of landscape painting as a genre in its own right.
In an early account of his life by Rembrandt's pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–1678), Segers is portrayed as a misunderstood artist: far ahead of his time, he was rejected during his lifetime and his brilliance was only recognised after his death. This version of the artist's life, which corresponds to the literary stereotype of the poor, under-appreciated genius, is refuted by documentary evidence which suggests that Segers was highly regarded by his colleagues. In fact, Rembrandt (1606–1669) owned eight of his paintings. His purchase of a large house on the Lindengracht in Amsterdam in 1619 proves that his art brought him considerable wealth, and the purchase of two Segers landscapes by Frederick Hendrik and Amalia van Solms in the early 1630s indicates that he was equally well received by the nobility. Segers nevertheless got into financial difficulties and was forced to sell his house in Amsterdam in 1630, moving to Utrecht for a short time and then to The Hague, which is said to have been his last place of residence.
Hercules Segers was one of the most prolific artistic minds of his time and created landscapes of astonishing originality. Using a range of unusual techniques, he etched colourful landscapes, seascapes, and biblical scenes. His small œuvre comprises 182 prints, which vary greatly in composition, and 19 paintings. In his prints, he was bold in his experimentation, in particular with a printing method he developed, in which he individually re-coloured and partially altered each copy, making every one of them unique.
Segers, who is now recognised as the most innovative printmaker of the first wave of the Dutch Golden Age and one of the most original graphic artists of all time, saw himself, and was seen by his contemporaries, first and foremost as a painter. As has recently been established, his prints were in most cases created after his oil paintings, which in turn formed the basis for his radical, highly innovative etchings.
A complete provenance
The exceptionally well-documented provenance of this painting can be traced back to the 17th century. The label on the back of the panel provides a wealth of information about the painting's aristocratic provenance: the words ‘Oranienbourg / Im monath Septbr / 1709’ are written in elegant script around the stamped coat of arms of Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, later King Frederick I of Prussia. Similar inscriptions in black or red ink with the same coat of arms can also be found on other paintings from the electoral collection. They were applied to the paintings listed in the inventory of Oranienburg Palace, 30 km north of Berlin, in the autumn of 1709 (see H. Sander: Schloss Oranienburg. Ein Inventar aus dem Jahre 1743, Berlin/Brandenburg 2001, p. 29). The name ‘...les Segers’ is written in black under the label, indicating that from at least 1709 it was known that Hercules Segers had produced this forest scene. The inventory from 1709 has not survived, but the painting is already listed in the inventory from 1699 as ‘207. A landscape through a forest in a black frame’ (the number ‘207’ at the bottom left of the canvas, which was glazed over during restoration in 2016, refers to this inventory) and in the one from 1743 as ‘A country scene, through a forest, in a black frame, by Segers’. At the time, the painting hung in the King of Prussia's antechamber, as indicated by the note ‘1743 R. No:8’. Both inventories mention a second forest landscape by Segers, which also hung in the palace from the seventeenth century (probably as a counterpart) and is now lost.
It is not known for certain exactly when the painting came to Oranienburg. It is assumed that Jan Ruijscher (1625–1675), court painter to the Elector of Brandenburg and a successor to Seger, who was nicknamed ‘the young Hercules’, played a role in the acquisition. This would mean that both forest scenes were acquired a generation earlier, around 1657–62, by Frederick's father, Frederick William (1620–1688), the Great Elector. However, it is equally possible that the Amsterdam-based dealer Johannes de Renialme (1600–1657) played a role in the transaction. In a letter dated 19 August 1650, he offered Frederick William a rare landscape by Segers in the same format as a beach scene by Jan Porcellis (1582–1632), which was already in Frederick's collection (see John Michael Montias: Art at Auction in 17th-century Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2002, p. 137). Frederick William was married to Countess Louise Henriette of Nassau (1627–1667), daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau, and Amalie zu Solms-Braunfels (1602–1675) and spent the years 1634 to 1638 in the Netherlands, where he developed a taste for art at the court of The Hague (see Claudia Sommer: Niederländische Einflüsse auf die Landeskultivierung und Kunstentfaltung in Brandenburg von 1640 bis 1740, in: exh.cat. Onder den Oranje boom: Dutch art and culture in the 17th and 18th centuries at German princely courts, 18.4.–18.7.1999, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Museum, Krefeld / Schloss Oranienburg, Oranienburg / Palast Het Loo, Appeldoorn, Munich 1999, catalogue volume, p. 205). There he may have had the opportunity to admire the two landscapes by Hercules Segers mentioned in the 1632 inventory of the Prince of Orange's possessions ‘twee stucken schilderiën, sijnde landtschappen, deur Hercules Zegers gemaeckt.’ (see S. W. A. Drossaers and Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer: Inventarissen van de inboedels in de verblijven van de Oranjes en daarmede gelijk te stellen stukken (1567–1795), 's-Gravenhaage 1974, vol. I, p. 230) and may have received it in 1646 through his marriage to Princess Louise Henriette of Orange-Nassau (1627–1667). A final possibility is that Frederick William acquired the works directly from Segers or his circle.
After several generations of aristocratic ownership, the painting left the palace when the Electoral Collection was dissolved between 1743 and 1800. A short time later, it entered the collection of the Leipzig master builder and councillor Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1756–1836) and his son of the same name, Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1803–1854), who worked as a lawyer and historian in Dresden.
In 1838, the painting was acquired by the Norwegian landscape painter Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857) at an auction in Dresden (see National Library Oslo, Johan Christian Dahl, edition book (ms.), entry dated 2 May 1838 (‘A landscape without frame allegedly by Segers’). At this point, the attribution to Hercules Segers was no longer known. In fact, Dahl mistakenly noted an attribution to the Antwerp flower painter Daniel Seghers (1590–1661) on a label on the reverse. Dahl must have been particularly impressed by Segers' painting technique and the dense rendering of the landscape, which was unusual for the early 17th century. He was particularly interested in seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting and in his early years made copies after Jacob van Ruisdael (1628–1682), whose influence is clearly visible in his later work.
According to Dahl's diary, his agent, H. T. Heftye, sold the painting to Andreas Schram Olsen (1791–1845) in Larvik, Norway, around 1839. After Olsen’s death in 1845, the painting became the property of the collector Johan Ludwig Malthe (1807–1896), probably as one of five paintings that Malthe acquired either at Schram Olsen's estate auction in Kristiana (Oslo) in December 1845, or directly from the auctioneer (see exh.cat. 2016/2017, footnote 7). His nephew, the doctor and art collector Alexander Ludwig Normann Malthe (1845–1928) and his niece Alfhilde Malthe (1876–1961) subsequently inherited the painting.
With the auction of the Malthe estate in 1962, the painting came into the possession of the auctioneer Ole Fagersand (1909–2002) and his descendants. A Norwegian private collector acquired the painting in 2003 at the estate auction of Ole Fagersand's heirs, where the painting was erroneously listed as 19th/20th century European school. At that point, the painting was still displayed in the frame with the typical ornamentation favoured by Johan Christian Dahl, which became known as the Dahl frame.
In 2007, the painting underwent a series of scientific tests and art-historical research was conducted. This led to the rediscovery of painting's authorship and ultimately to its inclusion in the major retrospective of the artist Hercules Segers at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam in 2016/2017.
CHF 350 000 / 500 000 | (€ 360 820 / 515 460)
Sold for CHF 270 000 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.