Lot Essay
Attributed by Hofstede de Groot (a typed copy of his letter dated December 1913 is available) to Pieter van Slingelandt. Willem van de Watering was the first to propose the attribution to Pieter Jacobsz. Duyfhuysen. The boy is very similar to that in the artist's painting in the Wallace Collection (no. P205), which van de Watering also recognized as the work of Duyfhuysen, and which, indeed, is signed with his monogram (J. Ingamells, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Pictures, IV, Dutch and Flemish, 1992, pp. 96-8). Van de Watering has pointed out that the same dog in the present picture also appears in the Portrait of a Woman in the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida.