The date 1639 makes this one of Cuyp’s earliest works; the artist was 19 years old! From maps of the period we know that there was a lumberyard located on the river Merwede near Dordrecht and Cuyp often painted landscapes near his native city. The highly complex and yet convincing structure of the beautiful skies is unusual at this stage of his career and heralds the famous landscapes that he painted from the 1650s.