A river landscape in a storm, with sailing vessels and a rowing boat in choppy waters, a rainbow in the distance

The most significant contribution to the scholarship around the German-born Hendrik Willem Schweickhardt was made by Eric Jan Sluijter in an article of 1975 (see Literature). Born in Hamm, the artist was often said to have arrived in The Hague in the early 1770s. However, records show that his father, a wine merchant, became a citizen there in 1749. Schweickhardt himself was confirmed in the Lutheran Church in 1767, married Magdalena van Olst in 1773 (they had seven children), and bought a large townhouse in 1779.

Schweickhardt was primarily engaged in decorative work during his time in The Hague. Influenced by a range of Dutch landscapists, including Aelbert Cuyp, Paulus Potter and Jan Wijnants, he developed a refined pictorial language marked by atmospheric light, delicate tonal gradation, and a sensitive rendering of rural life. This aesthetic was eminently suitable for large decorative schemes, for which there was strong demand from the town's wealthy homeowners. His large-scale canvases were designed to cover entire walls or to be set into wooden panelling, and alongside these he painted other decorative pieces such as overdoors, overmantels and screens. The artist kept a memorandum book from 1773 to 1796, now held by the municipal archives in The Hague and transcribed by Sluijter, where he noted the details of his patrons, commissions and payments. Between 1773 and 1779 he completed eight large commissions, a couple of which are still in situ today. Sluijter identifies the present work with a series painted for Jacob Staets van Hoogstraten, a merchant and shipowner who lived at Groenmarkt 29 in Dordrecht, with a payment recorded in the artist's memorandum book on 6 December 1778.