Riders watering their Horses

Detail from Salomon van Ruysdael Landscape with a Carriage and Horsemen at a Pool (1659)
©National Gallery, London; inventory number NG1344
Reproduced under (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license

Salomon van Ruysdael (c.1602-1670), one of a famous family of Dutch landscape painters, became a member of the Haarlem Painters’ Guild in 1623. He specialised in the play of light on water, and landscapes with travellers, often stopping at an inn for refreshment. They are arranged in groups, interacting with each other but not the painter, and often have their backs to us. Travellers on the road, too, tend to be moving away from us. His use of slanting light suggests the photographers’ ‘golden hour’ and the approach of evening, as in this painting.

His groups, pausing at an inn or toiling up a road, use a wide range of transport: here a small carriage, but most of the travellers are on horseback, including two women who are riding sidesaddle. Most seventeenth-century women in paintings ride this way, whether they are elegant ladies or market women.

For the full image of this painting, go to The National Gallery website. It is quite small, in common with many Dutch landscape paintings of the period: 19½ inches by 25 inches. For travellers outside an inn, see Travellers at the Inn of the White Swan, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.