Alastair Laing has kindly pointed out that this dates from before Boucher's departure to Italy in July 1728. Sixteen landscape studies dating from this period, including the present drawing, were offered as lot 2111 in Huquier's sale in 1761. Another sheet from that lot, very close in style and technique to the present drawing, was offered at Sotheby's, 6 July 1992, lot 56, illustrated. A tree study of the same period is in the Polakovits Collection, A. Laing, op. cit., no. 84.
The composition of the present landscape is strongly influenced by Titian and Campagnola, though it is likely that Boucher experienced them second hand through studying Watteau copies. When staying with the financier and collector Crozat, Watteau drew copies of Venetian drawings, including a large number of Campagnolas. At the time of the artist's death in 1721, Jean de Julienne commissioned Jean Audran to produce a book of engravings after Watteau, the Figures de Différents Caractères. Boucher produced around 100 plates of the 350 in the book, and engraved all the landscapes. The composition, with a large tree in the foreground, and the treatment of the foliage in plate 91 of the Figures is very similar to that of the present study.