Stags and rabbits at the foot of a blasted tree in a landscape

The motif of the diagonally placed tree also occurs in the picture, signed and dated 1620, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (P.J.J. van Thiel et al., All The Paintings etc., 1976, p.281, no.A1740, ill.). Here the tree has become the main motif in order to stress the diagonal opening of the landscape, with the low horizon on the right. The composition recalls that of the Haarlem landscape painters, such as Van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael, who experimented with diagonally receding river banks at about the same time, circa 1627/30.