Cattle and Sheep in a River Landscape

Adriaen van de Velde (Dutch, 1636–1672)

1663

Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas

Dimensions52.7 x 70.8 cm (20 3/4 x 27 7/8 in.)

Credit LineErnest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund

Accession number50.864

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

InscriptionsLower right: A. V. Velde. f / 1663ProvenanceBy 1834, Anna Louisa Agatha van Loon-van Winter (b. 1793 – d. 1877), Amsterdam [see note 1]; 1877, collection sold en bloc by the heirs of Anna Louisa Agatha van Loon-van Winter to Alphonse, Gustave, Edmond, Lionel and Ferdinand de Rothschild (acting in syndicate) [see note 2]; assigned to Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (b. 1839 - d. 1898), Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, England; given by Ferdinand de Rothschild to his sister, Baroness Mathilde von Rothschild (b. 1832 - d. 1924), Frankfurt [see note 3]; by 1925, to her son-in-law, Baron Maximilian von Goldschmidt-Rothschild (b. 1843 - d. 1940), Frankfurt [see note 4]; about 1949/1950, probably sold by the heirs of Goldschmidt-Rothschild to Rosenberg and Stiebel, New York [see note 5]; 1950, sold by Rosenberg and Stiebel to the MFA for $3500. (Accession Date: May 11, 1950)

NOTES:
[1] In the Van Loon collection according to John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, vol. 5 (London, 1834), p. 212, no. 127.

[2] Michael Hall, "Le Gout Rothschild: The Origins and Influences of a Collecting Style," in British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response (Surrey, 2014), p. 110.

[3] According to a letter from Saemy Rosenberg of Rosenberg and Stiebel to W.G. Constable of the MFA (May 16, 1950).

[4] Maximilian Goldschmidt married Baroness Mathilde's daughter, Minna Caroline von Rothschild (b. 1857 - d. 1903) and became Baron von Goldschmidt-Rothschild in 1903/07. He lent this painting to the "Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus Privatbesitz," Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, 1925, cat. no. 221.

In November 1938 Nazi authorities forced Max von Goldschmidt-Rothschild to sell his art collection to the city of Frankfurt. Upon his death in 1940, the objects were transferred to and accessioned by various city museums. After the war, his heirs succeeded in legally voiding the 1938 sale and recuperating the collection, which was sent to the United States. See "Important French Furniture & Objets d'Art," Goldschmidt-Rothschild estate sale, part one, Parke-Bernet, New York, March 10-11, 1950, prefatory note.

[5] Rosenberg and Stiebel sold a number of works of art for members of the Rothschild family at this time.