Like several other very talented Dutch landscape artists of the second half of the seventeenth century, Jan de Bisschop's primary profession was not that of artist, although he appears to have studied with Bartholomeus Breenbergh, whose style was a great influence on him. In 1649, the year after his earliest dated drawing was executed, de Bisschop enrolled as a law student in Leiden, where he remained until 1652. Thereafter he moved to The Hague to take up a legal appointment at the Court. De Bisschop continued his activities as a draughtsman during his professional career and made a large number of drawings of the area around The Hague.
The present sheet is stylistically similar to the drawings De Bisschop produced in and around The Hague. There is great freedom in the application of wash that is almost impressionistic in its handling. De Bisschop's assured use of wash, seen throughout his graphic oeuvre, is highly sophisticated giving variety and depth to his compositions.