Salomon van Ruysdael was one of the pioneers of naturalist landscape painting in the Netherlands in the first half of the 17th century. He was specialized in scenes of rivers and estuaries, as well as seascapes, composed on the basis of real elements typical of the Dutch landscape, repudiating the previous conventions such as the artificial compositions of the classical Italian and French landscape painters. Ruysdael’s paintings are peopled by fishermen, country folk and merchants. In River Scene with a Raft Transporting Cattle (c. 1650), a boat is transporting a group of seven people and five cows, while, at the left, a man is walking along a riverside path. In the background, we see what appears to be a city, with a tower and a group of boats. The zigzagging line formed by the twisted tree on the riverbank and the reflection of its trunk in the water organize the painting’s composition, making it more dynamic. The tree’s placement in the foreground also lends depth to the landscape. The color palette — in blue, gray, brown and yellow — is darker in the lower left corner but gradually becomes lighter toward the right, where sky and water merge in the far distance.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2017

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In the mid portion of the canvas, a raft conveys a group of seven people and five head of cattle. On the left bank covered with vegetation, a man walks on a trail bordering the river. To his right, a tall tree with irregular trunk spreads its roots to the water edge. On the background, church steeples and boat masts tower over city buildings. Whereas Stechow dated the painting River Scene with a Raft Transporting Cattle 1650-1655, documents in Masp’s archives establish its date as 1652.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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