View of Bentheim Castle

Ruisdael was in his early twenties when he painted this panel, around 1652 to 1654, and Bentheim Castle, just across the German border from the Dutch Republic, was a real place he knew. The Mauritshuis singles out how he made it look monumental. He sets our eye low, so that we look up at the castle from below, over the rough ground and the trees in front, and the museum credits Ruisdael with being the first to use that device.

For most of its known history the painting was in English hands. In 1817 it failed to sell at a London auction of the Duc de Dalberg's pictures and went privately, with about 30 others, to Edward Strutt, later the first Baron Belper. His family kept it for nearly two centuries and lent it to the museum in Birmingham from 1989. It came up at Sotheby's in 2005, and the Mauritshuis acquired it that year through the Maastricht dealer Noortman.