Van Edema was a pupil of Allart van Everdingen in Amsterdam before coming to England during the reign of Charles II. This is one of a group of four paintings by Edema in the collection (OM 434-7, 402471, 402472, 403931 and 404750), three of which are signed (and the forth clearly one of a pair) and all of which are mentioned in the 1818 inventory of Kensington Palace. They can all be roughly dated to c. 1695-1700 and have the character and format of decorative overdoors. In comparison with other visiting landscapists of this era - Rousseau, Danckerts, Loten, De Hennin, Van Diest and so on - Edema conveys a much stronger sense of the damp and palpable stuff of nature - the branch, the leaf and the clod. This is perhaps something he learned from Everdingen. This is one of a pair with OM 435, 402471 and shows an inn by a stream under a hill, with figures crossing a bridge