The copperplate was not in any of the major, early collections or sales and is considered to be lost.

The print shows a boundary post (Mylpaal or Banpaal) just outside Amsterdam. There were six of these posts encircling the city and were meant to determine the area within which exiled citizens were not allowed to come. The one pictured here was identified by Frits Lugt in 1920 to be the one near Spieringshorn at the Spaarndammerdijk. The location is just somewhat east of Halfweg, a small village literally halfway between Amsterdam and Haarlem.

This print was originally known as Het landschap met de Pyramide (Landscape with Pyramid) and was correctly renamed by Daulby, based on the identification by Frits Lugt

Rembrandt may have seen a print of the milestone near Sloten made by Claes Jansz. Visscher. It has been suggested by Sutton and Lugt that the same boundary post is visible in a painted winter landscape made four years earlier (Bredius 452, now in the Staatliche Museen in Kassel).

NH lists eight copies including one in the same direction: copy E by Richard Byron (two states, 77 x 157 mm, WB 1)
There are seven copies in reverse. Copy A is by Francis Vivares (1748, 90 x 163 mm, WB 3). Copy B is by John Clerk of Eldin, signed IC & RH (35 x 82 mm). Copy C is signed Claude-Henri Watelet (in his Rymbranesques ou Essais de Gravure, 1785, 58 x 143 mm, WB 2). Copy D is signed Marguerite le Comte (140 x 195 mm). Copy F is by Jean Sauveur LeGros, signed LeGros 1789 (83 x 159 mm). Copy G is signed Louis Gervais Marvy (102 x 182 mm). Copy H is anonymous, signed SH (83 x 137 mm).

The etching is considered as special by Bartsch and Wilson.

All authors list two states.
In the 1st state (R611) the cottage and the base of the obelisk are still unshaded. In later impressions an accidental scratch runs at the top of the plate from the obelisk. It also shows in some impressions of the 2nd state.
In the 2nd state (R612) left to right shading is added to the cottage and the paling, to the base of the column and to the water and plants on the right foreground.

Impressions of the 1st state in the British Museum and in the Bibliothèque Nationale are on Japanese paper.
An impression in the Dutuit Collection is on brown paper, washed in greenish brown.
Of the 2nd state there are impressions on yellowish oatmeal paper (in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin) and on greyish paper (in the Albertina).
There is a counterproof of the 2nd state in the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, UK).

In the 2nd state: Foolscap with five-pointed collar with countermark LB (c. 1650); Posthorn with initials IR; Strasbourg lily.

H 243, BB 50-, G 218, M 324, Mz 157, RA 611-612, Cl 224, W 224, Bl 328, Du 224, CD 202, S104.
Vogelaar 2006, p. 95; Hinterding 2008, p. 427-430;

NHD/WB: 2nd and final state
A very good, contemporary impression of the final state, the slipped stroke well visible.
Sheet 87 x 166 mm (curved at the top), thread margins (+8 %).
No watermark: vertical chain lines at approx. 22mm.

Rembrandt: Paysages, Fonds Glenat (Couvent Ste.Cecile – Grenoble), February – June 2023;