View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds

In the first half of the 1670s Jacob van Ruisdael had been living in Amsterdam for about fifteen years, and he still kept coming back to the view of the town he came from. Here he stands on a high dune and looks across the flat land toward Haarlem, a low line on the horizon under an enormous sky.

What moves the eye is the weather. The sun breaks through the drifting clouds in patches, and Ruisdael lets those patches of light lead you into the distance step by step, from the fields where linen lies out to bleach, past the farms, to the church of Saint Bavo at the far end. Between the bright strips the land sinks into cloud shadow.

The Mauritshuis bought the canvas in 1827 from the Amsterdam collector Gerrit Muller, five years after the museum first opened its doors.