Peasants and cattle on a ferry near a landing stage by a ruined city gate, sailing vessels in a harbour beyond, on a cloudy day

The attribution has been kindly suggested by Dr. H.U. Beck in a letter dated 23 September 1998, on the basis of a transparency. He believes it to be a late work by the artist, to be dated to circa 1640/45. The artist owed much to Jan van Goyen. However, there is no documentary evidence of Van der Hulft being a pupil of Van Goyen in Haarlem. The signature, which is contemporary, suggests that Van der Hulft settled in Leyden after an apprenticeship, to further commercialise Van Goyen's idiom.
The present lot is to be compared with Jan van Goyen's river landscapes with ruins from the early 1640's, as, for instance, the View of Fort Lillo in the Museum in Manchester, New Hampshire (H.U. Beck, Jan van Goyen, II, 1973, p.338, n0751, ill.).