This is a relatively late work by Salomon van Ruysdael, painted in the fluent & assured style of his maturity. Unlike 'A River Landscape with Fishermen' it contains no preparatory underdrawing. Salomon van Ruysdael, who was active in Haarlem, was influenced by Esaias van de Velde & Jan van Goyen. Works by both artists can be found in the National Gallery's Collection. Salomon's nephew was the famous Dutch landscape painter Jacob Isaacsz. van Ruisdael, whose works are also represented in the Collection. ...

Wijnants was from Haarlem & throughout his life the subject of almost all his pictures is the characteristic dune scenery near the city. However, in this picture a specific location cannot be identified. Shortly after he painted this picture he moved to ...

The elevated viewpoint & low horizon give the viewer the impression of a vast landscape. The eye is guided along the winding river towards the farm in the middle distance. The dramatic cloud formation emphasises the further deep recession of the space b ...

Two horsemen have stopped to talk in front of some farm buildings. A boat navigates the river at the left. Jan Wouwermans lived & worked in Haarlem, painting landscapes based on the dune scenery near Haarlem. As one can see in this painting, he was influenced by Jan Wijnants & by his brother, the well-known landscape painter Philips Wouwermans, whose works are also represented in the National Gallery's Collection. ...

Wijnants came from Haarlem & this picture shows the dune landscape between that town & the coast. It is unlikely to represent a specific location. The figures & animals are probably by Jan Lingelbach (1622
- 1674), & the picture probably dates from the 1660s when Wijnants & Lingelbach were both living in Amsterdam.
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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. ...