Jan Claesz Rietschoof showed an early talent for drawing and painting. The painter’s biographer, Houbraken, reports that at the age of fourteen the artist became a pupil of Abraham Liedst, a local portrait painter, and later of the famous Amsterdam seascape painter Ludolf Backhuysen. Houbraken also writes that Rietschoof adhered to his master’s approach and that Rietschoof’s masterpieces were regularly attributed to Ludolf Backhuysen. Rietschoof did not sign his works, or if he did, it was with the monogram JRC, which was easily erased. This is why, in the past, many of his paintings were attributed to his master Backhuysen or to colleagues or pupils who imitated his style. It is only in recent decades that the number of works attributed to Rietschoof for stylistic reasons has increased and this master has emerged from the shadow of his sometimes better colleagues. Rietschoof remained a successful painter well into his old age, and in 1697 was one of the two hundred or so ‘distinguished’ and wealthiest inhabitants of Hoorn.