Lot 24: Attributed to Aert van der Neer (Amsterdam circa 1603/4-1677)

A moonlit landscape with two peasants conversing near a lake in the foreground signed with monogram 'AV DN' (lower right) oil on panel 16 x 22 in. (40.6 x 55.9 cm.) PROVENANCE Joseph, Ritter Lippmann von Lissingen, Vienna; sale, Pillet, Paris, 16 March 1876, lot 31, as Aert van der Neer (sold 3,700 francs). Baron Etienne Martin de Beurnonville (d. 1881); (+) sale, Pillet, Paris, 9 May 1881, lot 394, as Aert van der Neer (sold 3,050 francs). Anon. Sale, Muller, Amsterdam, 30 November 1909, lot 37, as Aert van der Neer (sold to the present owner). LITERATURE C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonn‚, etc., VII, London, 1923, p. 423, no. 423, as Aert van der Neer. W. Schulz, Aert van der Neer, Doornspijk, 2002, p. 398, no. 1076, present whereabouts unknown, 'authentic or copy'. NOTES Another work sold in the 1876 Lippmann von Lissingen sale ( Interior of a Dutch House by Pieter de Hooch now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) was acquired there by Sedelmeyer, who subsequently either sold it to, or acted on behalf of, the Baron de Beurnonville; it would seem likely that the present painting passed into that collection in the same manner. De Beurnonville was a collector of some acuity, owning - in addition to the de Hooch - works by such artists as Gerard David, Rogier van der Weyden, Rubens, Ruisdael, Terborch, Fragonard and Chardin, all in public collections today, as well as Van der Neer's Evening landscape with a horse and cart by a stream in the National Gallery, London.