Ruysdael’s earliest known dated painting is from 1626; by 1628, he was praised as a landscape painter by Samuel van Ampzing. Salomon’s early works show the influence of Esaias van de Velde who worked in Haarlem from 1609 to 1618. Alongside Pieter Molijn and Jan van Goyen, Salomon van Ruysdael played a pivotal role in establishing the importance of the Dutch landscape in seventeenth century painting. Together with Jan van Goyen he developed the ‘tonal’ phase of landscape painting in the 1630s when both artists, whose works are extremely close at this time, used muted, tones of greys, greens, yellows, blues and browns to depict the local landscape, creating a harmonious effect.

The immediacy of this work is re-inforced by the likelihood that Salomon van Ruysdael composed his landscapes directly on panel or canvas in the studio without first making preliminary studies. Infrared reflectography carried out on a number of early works has revealed that the artist rapidly sketched the main components of his design in charcoal before proceding to paint; it was only at this final stage that smaller more detailed elements like staffage were added. On later panels, and on canvases, no underdrawings at all are found leading to the assumption that the artist’s technique had become so fluid, and his compositions so practised, that he could begin at once to apply pigment.