Salomon van Ruysdael (ca. 1600/03–1670) is famous for his landscape paintings, particularly for his river landscapes. Since 1623, he had been a member of the Haarlem Guild and travelled extensively through the northern Netherlands in order to find motifs for his landscapes in other places. He then did not faithfully reproduce these motifs, but creatively inserted them into imaginary landscapes. This painting is a good example for this: It shows what is probably the “Plompetoren,” the unmistakable Utrecht tower that was one of van Ruysdael’s favourite motifs. He depicted it from various perspectives in several paintings. In each painting it is pictured in a different landscape that was not its actual location. The “Plompetoren” was part of the medieval town wall of Utrecht which consisted of 13 towers and was thus by no means as idyllically secluded as it is depicted here.