Jacob van Ruisdael Sketching a Watermill

This painting was part of a ‘historical gallery’, a collection of paintings and sculptures glorifying Dutch art. The landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael was one of the 17th-century artists to be honoured with a painting. He is shown here out-of-doors, in the act of sketching a watermill. Bilders was clearly more skilled in painting the landscape than in rendering the figure.