Jan Six' bridge, 1645

About the Work

The artist has captured the atmosphere of a warm, sunny day on the little Amstel River south of Amsterdam – not with a thoroughly worked range of surface tones, but with sketchy strokes. Yet the spontaneous quality is the result of precise calculation: the carefully developed main motif – the bridge – has been skilfully linked with the background, where the church tower of the village of Ouderkerk can be discerned. Contrary to what the traditional title suggests, it is not the land of Jan Six (an Amsterdam patrician and friend of Rembrandt’s) that we see here; in reality the location can only be roughly identified, and was modified according to compositional considerations.