A Landscape with a Waterfall and a Castle on a Hill

The picture probably dates from the 1660s when Ruisdael was living in Amsterdam. It was first recorded in an Amsterdam collection in the 19th century. Ruisdael painted many waterfalls from the late 1650s onwards; they were inspired by the work of the Amsterdam artist Allart van Everdingen, who had visited Scandinavia in 1644 and made a number of drawings of rocky mountainous scenes with torrents and waterfalls.