In his dramatic evocation of the Portuguese Jewish Cemetery at Ouderkerk,
Ruisdael centers his composition on the startlingly white tomb of
Doctor Philotheus Eliahu de Luna Montalto (in Christian life known
as Felipe Rodrigues de Castelo Branco.) Since the painting was realized
only some forty years after Montalto’s death (1616) and the founding
of the cemetery (1614), the aura of romantic decay should be taken
as poetic license. The tomb’s craggy setting also has little to do
with the actual topography of the Ouderkerk "Beth Haim", which
is situated on a flat stretch of the Amstel River four kilometers
south of the city of Amsterdam.
