In the late 1640s, Koninck, began to paint panoramas, his canvases divided in half, horizontally, between equal measures of earth and sky.

Koninck was evidently much affected by Rembrandt etchings like 'The Goldweigher's Field', which looked across a broad sweep of country layered with bands of shade and light.

[4] Impressionable and single-minded, Philips Koninck began to paint like this for the next decade, almost all his panoramas pieced together as if narrow ribbons of darkness and brightness had been laid across the canvas.

He was a great success, enough of one, at any rate, to buy and operate a barge line that ran between Amsterdam and Rotterdam via Leiden, so that his business could travel through his own landscapes.

[5] He painted chiefly broad, sunny landscapes, full of space, light and atmosphere; they are seen from a high perspective, allowing a prominent view of the sky.