Notes

By the early 1630s, Van Goyen favoured dune landscapes seen from a low viewpoint, with trees and buildings rising to the left or right. A similar wagon loaded with passengers is shown in two other pictures of the same year, one in the Westfries Museum, Hoorn, the other in the York City Art Gallery (Beck 1973, p.453, nos. 1008 & 1009).

Notes on the Provenance

Russian collector and specialist in Flemish and Dutch art Paul Delaroff (St. Petersburg 1852-1913) had been the private counsellor of the Emperor Nicolas II of Russia, the Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov (18 May 1868 – 17 July 1918) Nicholas II abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917 during which he and his family were imprisoned first in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, then later in the Governor’s Mansion in Tobolsk, and finally at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. Nicholas II, his wife, his son, his four daughters, the family’s medical doctor, the Emperor’s footman, the Empress’ maidservant, and the family’s cook were killed in the same room by the Bolsheviks on the night of 16/17 July 1918.

Prof Vadim Sadkov in his lecture for ‘CODART Twee: ‘Dutch and Flemish paintings in Russian provincial museums: history and highlights’:

“Since the time of Peter the Great every new generation of art collectors and amateurs in Russia has had a strong interest in the European old masters, especially for those of the Dutch and Flemish Schools. Besides the famous collections of masterpieces in the Hermitage and the imperial palaces in and around St. Petersburg, there were many private collections of Dutch and Flemish art belonging to aristocrats and merchants. They were kept in both their city and country homes and estates in almost every region of our vast country. From the late 18th century until the Revolution of November 1917, each successive generation of art lovers in Russia was active and ambitious in the collecting of old masters, mainly Italian but also Dutch and Flemish masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Typically, these collections would at a given moment be sold in estate auctions or via art dealers not only in St. Petersburg and Moscow, but also in various provincial centres. Some Russian collections were even sold in Europe, as the famous collection of Paul Delaroff, which was sold in Paris in 1914.”

After Delaroff’s death, his collection was sold at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April – May 1914.