Of all Dutch landscape painters, Koekkoek is perhaps the most Romantic. He specialized in splendid panora-mas of the valley of the Rhine and forest scenes with majestic trees, which at the time were called ‘Wodan’s Oaks’ (Wodan being the Dutch name for Odin, the major god in Norse mythology). In 1834 Koekkoek settled in Cleves in Germany, over the border from Nijmegen. He found German scenery, with its hills and the Rhine, more romantic than the Dutch landscape.