River landscape with a ferry, Salomon van Ruysdael, 1649 oil on panel, h 91cm × w 126cm.
With four horses, five dogs, two cows and 11 people on board, the slender ferry seems heavily laden; the barges in the distance are also full of passengers. Salomon van Ruysdael was the quintessential interpreter of the flat, watery Dutch landscape. Here he applied a tried and tested formula: on the right a bank with tall trees, on the left the water stretching to the horizon.
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