Throughout his career Jan van Goyen combined quality and quantity. Constantly innovating, he provided the basic patterns for a wide variety of realistic landscapes produced by contemporary competitors in 17th century Holland and by several generations of imitators after him. This river landscape is a magnificent example of an oeuvre, catalogued by Hans-Ulrich Beck, of twelve hundred paintings and eight hundred drawings, which together form a milestone in the history of art. The quality of these individual works of art is measured, not by their "uniqueness" but rather by the amount of creative workmanship that they contain. Production-raising and - as is sometimes maintained - cost-reducing techniques that the artist applied, never led him into the sterile copying of successful scenes. The painting is signed with monogram and dated on the ferry boat to the left, 1653. Signature and another date can be seen on the ferry boat to the right, 1644.