It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum.

In the right middle distance is a great oak wood, traversed by a road on which stand a man and boy conversing with a woman who sits nursing a child.

To the left of the road is the stream, through which two persons apparently men drive a flock of sheep.

"This excellent picture, in addition to its being one of the largest works of the artist, is singularly grand and rich in its composition, combined with unusual clearness and brilliancy of colouring and the most masterly execution, justly entitling it to the appellation of a chef d'oeuvre" (Sm.).

As a warning of the forces of nature, these often included logs or broken tree stumps as silent witness to a more flooded scene than the one depicted.

Inspired by the dramatic works of Allaert van Everdingen, Ruisdael also made more Nordic versions (such as A Waterfall in a Rocky Landscape), which included pine trees and mountains.