Salomon van Ruysdael had begun painting river scenes by 1631 (National Gallery, London, Inv. no. 1439). He subsequently produced scores of images with diagonally receding bodies of water, often a canal or estuary, beside a wedge-shaped bank covered with trees. Often silhouetted cattle and a fishing or ferry boat enhance the spatial recession. Despite his exhaustive study of the river theme, Salomon's compositions never appear repetitive or formulaic, but as the present picture attests, constantly bring a fresh inventiveness to this favored design. Although Ruysdael had begun painting upright landscapes by 1636 (see Stechow, op.cit., no. 25, fig. 19), this painting has the elevated sky, more colorful palette, and technique that he had only fully developed by the mid 1640s; Stechow dated the present picture to the late 1650s. The motif of the windmill with its great sails projected against the sky is more readily associated with Salomon's nephew, Jacob van Ruisdael, but Salomon returned to the subject of the river view with a windmill and cattle in a variant of the present design dated 1657 and featuring a horizontal format (sold at Sotheby's, London, March 27, 1963, lot 41, illustrated; ibid., no. 527A)