Although formerly identified as the Haarlemmermeer, the scene probably offers a view on the Spaarne. This waterway flowed from the Haarlemmermeer to the IJ bay at Amsterdam. In the thirteenth century a dam with locks was constructed at the mouth of the Spaarne, where the village of Spaarndam then formed. When the Haarlemmermeer was drained, the Spaarne became a branch of the Ringvaart, lost much of its flow and became shallower.

Jan van Goyen loved to travel. On his journeys he recorded whatever met his eye. The artist visited the Southern Netherlands and the area around Kleve. In 1648 van Goyen undertook a journey to Brussels. But the Dutch countryside proved no less a source of inspiration, as the many drawings testify that were the fruit of the artist’s travels around The Hague, Leiden, Amsterdam and also Haarlem. Without the silhouette of the Bavo Church it would have been difficult to identify the expanse of water as the river Spaarne. The present painting is a masterpiece and records a piece of Dutch geography that today only still exists in much altered form.

Jan van Goyen was the son of a Leiden shoemaker. He had numerous teachers. According to Jan Orlers who wrote a chronicle of Leiden in 1641, he studied in that city with the glass painters Coenraet van Schilperoort, Isaac van Swanenburgh, Jan Arentsz de Man, Hendrick Clock and thereafter in Hoorn with Willem Gerritsz. He remained a year in France (1615/16) and subsequently finished his education in the Haarlem studio of Esaias van de Velde. Of all tutors the latter had by far the most decisive influence on van Goyen’s early landscapes. In 1618, he settled in Leiden, where he married Anna Willemsdr van Raelst in the same year. In 1632, he moved to The Hague, where he received citizenship two years later. He lived at various locations in the city, at one time having the painters Johannes Schoeff and Paulus Potter as his neighbours. Van Goyen was a prolific artist of whom more than 1200 pictures and no less than 800 drawings are known. Despite his enormous output, the artist was constantly in financial difficulty which he tried to overcome by art dealing, realty and appraising, but to no avail. Arnold Houbraken reports that Jan Steen, Nicolaes Berchem and Adriaen van der Cabel were among his pupils. However, other artists were profoundly influenced by his works; among them Anthony van der Croos, Jacob Moscher and Cornelis van der Schalcke.