The present lot is part of a group of ten landscape drawings, all in the same technique, which Dr. K.G. Boon first attributed to Van Hillegaert, based primarily on two drawings in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (E. Bock, J. Rosenberg, Die Niederländischen Meister, Berlin, 1930, nos. 2775-6), one of which is inscribed with the artist's name on the verso. Drawings from this group are in the Kunstmuseum, Berne (inv.no. A3096), the De Grez Collection, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv.no. 1584), the Fodor Collection, Amsterdam, (M. Schapelhouman, Tekeningen van Noord- en Zuidnederlandse Kunstenaars geboren voor 1600, Amsterdam, 1979, p. 137, no. 93, where unattributed), a Dutch private collection (Kabinet van Tekeningen, 16e en 17e eeuwse Hollandse en Vlaamse Tekeningen uit een Amsterdamse verzameling, Rotterdam, 1977, p. 55, no. 94, pl. 22, as Willem van Nieulandt II), the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (K. Andrews, Catalogue of Netherlandish Drawings, Edinburgh, 1985, I, nos. RSA 493-4, II, figs. 256-7), another is in the F.C. Butôt Collection (L.J. Bol, G.S. Keyes, Netherlandish Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of F.C. Butôt, London, 1981, p. 130, no. 48), while one was sold, Sotheby's Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 18 November 1980, lot 30, illustrated p. 101 (as Willem van Nieulandt II). Dr. K.G. Boon, who kindly pointed out the majority of these drawings, suggests, on the basis of the variety of landscapes in the surviving drawings, that the artist may have travelled from Flanders to Italy