This is de Wet's only known landscape without biblical figures. The right half of the composition was repeated
- with variations
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This composition is indebted to paintings by Adam Elsheimer such as ' The Small Tobias' (Frankfurt, Historisches Museum) & ' The Flight into Egypt' (Munich, Alte Pinakothek), which were available to Vroom in the form of prints by Hendrick Goudt. Vroom's re ...

Wijnants lived & worked in Haarlem, & his landscapes are based on the area around the town. Many buildings had been destroyed by the Spanish at the time of the siege of Haarlem & survived as picturesque ruins. The figures & animals are probably by ...

There are two larger versions of this composition (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie & Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen). The attribution of the National Gallery's painting to Jacob van Ruisdael has been questioned in the past. ...

The painting is one of the most famous of van Ruisdael's landscapes, & probably dates from the late 1660s. The composition apparently pleased the painter as well as his patrons, & is known in several smaller-scale versions, including ' An Extensive Landscape with Ruins', which is also in the Gallery. The scene is a sombre one, though not melancholy in its effect, & centres upon the ray of sunshine that lights up the fields in the middle distance. The clouds are banked towards each side of the composition, & diagonals, interrupted by the vertical thrust of the church spire & the ruined castle turret, lead from the foreground to the centre. The two figures to the left, probably painted by Adriaen van der Velde, give a human scale to the painting. While it is not possible to identify a precise location, the composition may have been loosely based on the landscape around the Dutch town of Haarlem. ...

The roofs of Dordrecht, seen from the south, are visible on the skyline. In the centre are the Grote Kerk (Great Church) & the Vuilpoort (one of the town's water gates, demolished in 1864). These buildings also appear in three landscapes by Aelbert Cuyp in the National Gallery's Collection (' The Large Dort', ' The Small Dort' & ' The Maas at Dordrecht in a Storm'). On the right is the Groothoofdspoort (a watergate which still survives), also shown in ' Scene on the Ice outside Dordrecht' by Calraet & 'A View across a River near Dordrecht '' (?)' by Bakhuizen. This picture once bore a false signature of Aelbert Cuyp but is probably by Willem van Drielenburgh; the remains of the signature support this attribution. Although van Drielenburgh is not recorded in Dordrecht before 1668, the painting was probably painted earlier, about 1655-60. ...

The picture probably dates from the 1660s when Ruisdael was living in Amsterdam. It was first recorded in an Amsterdam collection in the 19th century. Ruisdael painted many waterfalls from the late 1650s onwards; they were inspired by the work of the Amst ...

The town has not been identified, the two figures in classical dress in the lower right-hand corner may be Aeneas & Sibyl. This picture was formerly attributed to Cornelis van Poelenburgh, but van Lint painted a number of Italian views of this type to wh ...

Moucheron conjures up an idyllic vision of the Roman Campagna, based no doubt on drawings made during his visit to Italy. There are strong similarities with ' Shepherd & Shepherdess amidst Ruins' (Dresden) by de Moucheron's master, Jan Asselijn (died 1652). It probably dates from about 1660, shortly after Moucheron's return to Amsterdam. ...

Potter's style in this work is very close to that of Karel Dujardin as seen, for example, in a painting of 1656 in the National Gallery, ' Farm Animals with a Boy & Herdswoman'. Although Dujardin was the older artist, Potter may well have been the origin ...