A river landscape with a distant castle

It has proved difficult to reconstruct the career of Maerten de Cock, since facts are in short supply and the only firm dates are provided by those he inscribed on his drawings. Thanks to these we know that he was in Copenhagen in 1625 and in London in July 1630, although he was presumably only making a short visit to the latter city, since during the same period he is known to have been living in Amsterdam. The Flemish character of his draughtsmanship, which suggests familiarity with the style of Paul Bril (1553/54-1626), may indicate that he moved to Amsterdam from the Spanish Netherlands, perhaps for religious reasons.