The present lot is to be dated circa 1670, towards the end of the artist's career. Characteristic are the rather flat rendering of the waterfall, as in the picture in the Rijksmuseum (P.J.J. van Thiel e.a., All the Paintings etc., 1976, p. 487, inv.no. C210, with ill.) and the open landscape. Light is evenly distributed, not to dramatic effect as in the 1650's and 1660's, but to convey an idyllic impression.

Here the artist combines his favourite motives of the 1650's and 1660's. Ruisdael was known to have visited Bentheim castle over the border of the United Provinces after the Treaty of Münster in 1648. His earliest known painting of the Castle is of 1653. Rosenberg described Ruisdael's choice to visit the border areas as follows: "ein romantisches Grundgefühl, das heist eine Sehnsucht nach einer fremdartigen Natur hat bei der Bevorzugung gebirgiger Motive gegenüber der heimatlichen Flachlandschaft gewiss eine Rolle gespielt" (op.cit., p. 24).

The waterfall was introduced to Ruisdael by his pupil Allart van Everdingen, who had travelled to Sweden circa 1640 and who had introduced the theme to Dutch painting in the early 1650's. Ruisdael painted his first waterfall circa 1660 and continued with it mostly in upright format. In contrast to the present lot, the waterfall occupied the lower half of the picture plane in his earlier treatments of the theme (see for example the pictures in the Wallace Collection, fig. 131, the collection of the Earl of Northbrook (Rosenberg, op.cit., fig. 98) and the Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig).

See colour illustration