River landscape in Zeeland with a ruined tower

Koekkoek came from a family of artists, entering the studio of his father Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek (1778–1851) at a very young age. His early drawings that, like the present work, are mostly executed in grey wash, show both the influence of his father and his teacher at the Tekenacademie in Middelburg, Abraham Krayestein (1793-1855), and are more topographical than his later works. Koekkoek's early works do, however, show the nascent combination of detailed observation of nature and careful study of the great Dutch Romantic tradition of the 17th Century that came to typify his later style. Looking back in his book Herinneringen en Mededeelingen van eenen Landschapschilder, Koekkoek said that artists should not work from models but from nature, the only real teacher for a painter (Amsterdam, 1841, p.27). This Ruskinain approach can be seen in the present drawing in the carefully observed and executed bulrushes running along the water's edge.