In its transformation with dramatic light and accents of the Flemish tradition of fantasy mountain landscapes peopled by lonely travellers (epitomized in the idiom of Paul Bril), this picture shows De Villeers’s characteristic emulation of the work of the enigmatic Haarlem landscape artist Hercules Seghers. De Villeers likely came to Seghers by way of Abraham Furnerius and Rembrandt, who both admired the innovative landscapist. In the present composition, the curious feature of the half-hidden house in the centre is derived directly from Seghers’s work, where it appears, for example, in the Landscape with Houses in Rotterdam. Here, the looming monumental forms of the hills, caught in a raking light and rendered in chiaroscuro, are also reminiscent of the landscapes of Rembrandt himself, as is the monochromatic palette.