A village by a river with fishermen in rowing boats moored near the shore, ferries and sailing ships setting out beyond, at dawn, on a cloudy day

The year 1645 was amongst Salomon van Ruysdael's most productive, as at least a dozen paintings are dated. The favourite motif remained the diagonally placed river bank (see the note to lot 105). However, as P. Sutton points out in Masters of 17th Century Dutch Landscape Painting, 1987, p.472, in contrast to the tonal ones employed in the 1630's, the palette is now supplemented with accents of yellow and a bold sky-blue, while the foliage is enlivened with impressionistic touches. The present picture is to be compared with the River with Fishermen of 1645, in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (W. Stechow, op. cit., n0514, fig.30). Similar are the trees in the centre of the composition, silhouetted against the sky. Also similar is the calm summer atmosphere, in which the sky is a light rose colour above the horizon, applied in light horizontal brushstrokes.