A panoramic landscape with a hunter at rest

With its low horizon line and cloud-filled sky, this depiction of the countryside surrounding Haarlem stands as a remarkably early example of such a panoramic view unbounded by trees or structures along the edge of the composition. Often described as a ‘wingless’ panorama, such images only begin to be seen in earnest with paintings by Jan van Goyen and Philips Koninck around 1646/7 and would reach their fullest expression in Jacob van Ruisdael’s late panoramic views of Haarlem and Alkmaar from 1669 on. Only a handful of further panoramic views by Salomon van Ruysdael are known, including a painting from a decade later showing the bleaching fields around Haarlem in the Hallwylska Museet, Stockholm (fig. 1).