Le Moulin de Wijk bij Duurstede

Ruisdael painted this around 1670, near the height of the Dutch Republic's confidence, and he makes a working mill look like a monument. The tower mill at Wijk bij Duurstede, a river town not far from Utrecht, rises over the little castle and church beside it and stands against a bank of heavy, moving cloud. The River Lek runs across the front. What is easy to miss is how right he got it. The art historian Seymour Slive pointed out that the set of the sails and the run of the water are both accurate enough to satisfy an engineer, the mill catching the same wind that is pushing the clouds and filling the small sail on the river. Two women stand on the near bank in dark clothes. For a long stretch it was among the most-bought postcards at the Rijksmuseum, behind only Rembrandt and Vermeer.