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. ...

Create your own bespoke print of Peter Paul Rubens’ A Landscape with a Shepherd & his Flock from our collection. About this painting A Landscape with a Shepherd & his Flock, 1638 © The National Gallery, London This painting joined our collection in 1839 With our custom print service, you can order your own fully customised reproduction from the National Gallery Collection & exhibitions. Choose your own size, print material & frames & have your masterpiece delivered straight to your door. ...

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 ...

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 ...

The figures & animals in the foreground are silhouetted against a bright sunny sky. The panoramic vista that stretches before them is inspired by the landscape between Nijmegen & Cleves in the eastern part of the Netherlands. Cuyp had visited this are ...

Isack van Ostade is best known for his winter scenes of peasants on the ice (see 'A Winter Scene' also in the National Gallery's Collection). He also painted a few delicate landscapes, of which this is a rare, dated example. Sadly he died young
- before t
...

In the story of the Judgement of Paris, which derives from Homer's ' Iliad' (XXIV, 25-30), Paris, was asked at the wedding of Peleus & Thetis to determine who was the fairest of the goddesses Venus, Minerva & Juno. Paris decided in favour of Venus, as ...

The story is told in the Book of Tobit (6: 1-3). Tobias was sent by his blind father Tobit to collect a debt. He was escorted by the Archangel Raphael & when a fish attacked him as the crossed the river Tigris, Raphael told the boy to kill it & remove ...