Landsberg Castle, near Kettwig, Germany

Koekkoek, born in Middelburg, was trained by his father, marine painter Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek (1778-1851) and then at the local academy until 1822. After studying in Amsterdam until 1825, he started travelling; his first journey to Germany took place in 1830. After marrying the daughter of his master Jean Augustin Daiwaille (1786-1850), Koekkoek and his wife settled just across the German border in Cleves in 1834. Here he started the Cleves Drawing Academy. Cleves is not far from Kettwig, situated between Essen and Dsseldorf.
The present watercolour most probably dates from Koekkoek's first journey to Germany in 1830 as it appears to have been used for a finished watercolour of smaller format with a slightly changed setting, signed with monogram and dated 1830, now in the printroom of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (A. Nollert, loc.cit., fig. 1). Schloss Landsberg also appears in other drawings by Koekkoek, as well as in two lithographs and a autography by Daiwaille (cf. A. Nollert, op.cit., p. 91, fig. 101). First mentioned in 1294, it was built for the Counts of Berg (near Cleves) to secure the crossing of the river Ruhr on the border of the county Cleves. The farm at the left is called 'Howart'. In this Century Schloss Landsberg was owned by the Thyssen family, residing near their companies in the Ruhr area