LOST ARTWORK — River Landscape in Moonlight

One of the three paintings by the artist which were part of the Schlesisches Museum der bildenden Künste collection before 1945, which featured the moonlit evening or nocturnal landscapes typical of that painter. The effect of the play of the intense moonlight glowing against evening shadows is further intensified by the artist’s frequent use of reflections of light on the surface of water. In this picture the full moon lights up the river with all its islets, bends and promontories, and the buildings situated along its banks. On the left side the scene is framed by some cottages and a windmill, while to the right, by the silhouette of a church and farm outbuildings.

The painting was part of a donation by the city councillor Dr August Fischer, who in 1881 presented Schlesisches Museum der bildenden Künste with two pictures on a similar subject painted by van der Neer (the work described here was catalogued as cat. 144, no. in storage book 2926; while the other painting had cat. 134, no. in storage book 2941), and a third painting by the same artist was purchased in 1941 (no. in storage book 28176). In 1936 the first picture was restored in Schlesisches Museum der bildenden Künste. In 1942 all three paintings were placed in the museum depository in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki, from where they disappeared in 1945. The landscape acquired in 1941 was bought back in 1965 for the collection of National Museum in Warsaw, where it remains to the present day.
[Robert Heś]

keywords: Baroque  |  house (architecture)  |  tree  |  Fischer, August  |  church (architecture)  |  moon  |  Dutch painting  |  mill (architecture)  |  night  |  nocturne  |  landscape  |  river  |  German depository in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki  |  ship  |  Silesian Museum of Fine Arts, Wrocław / Schlesisches Museum der bildenden Künste, Breslau