Aelbert Cuyp was one of the most important landscape painters of the seventeenth Dutch Golden Age. His art combined a wide range of sources and influences, most significantly in the application of lighting effects derived from Italianate painting, applied to typical Dutch subjects. In doing so, such traditional themes as townscapes, winter scenes, cattle pieces and equestrian portraits were transformed under Cuyp and given new grandeur. Though virtually unknown outside his native town during his own lifetime, Cuyp became popular in the late eighteenth century, especially in England where his work significantly influenced the development of the English landscape tradition.

In this scene, Cuyp depicts a man wearing a buff jerkin and armour, and he is in the act of adorning the horse’s bridle with a blue ribbon. At the foot of a rising hill, an encampment stretches across the landscape, animated by numerous riders and scattered figures. To the left, a river meanders through the countryside, guiding the eye into the distance where a large hill rises against the horizon, contributing to the expansive and tranquil atmosphere characteristic of Cuyp’s landscapes.

This work was probably painted in the early 1650s. The mountainous landscape reflects Cuyp's visit to the Rhine landscape around Nijmegen in c. 1652, though he vastly exaggerates that terrain. The scene is set on the fringes of an army camp, with tradesmen's tents visible in the background, like those in Philips Wouwerman's camp scenes (404615 and 400682); it is interesting to contrast Cuyp's more heroic image – horse and rider isolated against the background – with the squalid disorder seen in Wouwerman.

Signed lower right: A. cuyp