Landscape with a Village in the Distance. Artist: Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, Haarlem 1628/29-1682 Amsterdam). Dimensions: 30 x 43 in. (76.2 x 109.2 cm). Date: 1646.This ambitious picture is one of nine known landscape paintings that bear the earliest date found on works by Van Ruisdael, 1646. At the time the artist was about eighteen years old. Youthful exuberance and some losses of paint and glazes combine to make the topography in the foreground somewhat unclear. However, the naturalistic description of foliage and the dramatic presentation of trees forecast the future of Holland's greatest landscape painter. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.