A Ruined Castle Gateway

Just outside Haarlem stood a castle called Huis ter Kleef. Spanish troops destroyed it in 1573, during their siege of the city, and its ruins stayed standing in the fields. Ruisdael painted this panel around 1650 to 1655, and the gateway here is probably what was left of it. A drawing of the same ruin by his contemporary Jan van de Velde, now in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, shows it from another side. The picture was long known simply as Ruisdael's Gate, a name that suggests people took the building for an invention.

A man leads a small girl by the hand toward the arch, while their dog hangs back at the threshold. A dim figure already stands inside. Ruisdael laid the sky on thinly and the trees in flickering touches, and gave the vault careful attention, its ribs springing from the columns and fanning out against the inner wall.