The Maas at Dordrecht in a Storm

Cuyp built his name on calm weather, which makes this panel a surprise. A squall has swept down the Maas, the broad river at Dordrecht, his home town, and a bolt of lightning cuts across the dark sky. For an instant the flash lights up the wet roofs and the square tower of the Grote Kerk, the town's great church, whose builders never finished its spire.

On the water three damlopers, sturdy shallow-draught trading boats with leeboards in place of a deep keel, heel under the wind with their sails blown taut, and spray bursts from the bow of the nearest. The crews look steady, handling their boats like men who worked this river every day. The panel is thought to be an early work, from the second half of the 1640s, and Cuyp painted Dordrecht under lightning at least once more, in a picture now in the Bührle collection in Zurich.