The present picture is a variant, with minor differences, of a work attributed to Pieter Bout which was sold in these Rooms, 26 May 1978, lot 44. It may also be compared with the same view, attributed to Theodor Matham, sold in these Rooms, 10 June 1994, lot 4. All are datable before 1654 when the wooden Pont de la Tournelle, just visible in the background, was replaced by a stone bridge. They all depict the 16th Century Hôtel de Nevers and the Tour de Nesle, on the left bank, which are remnants of the city walls of Philippe-Auguste. Both were demolished between 1641 and 1663 to make way for the Collège des Quatre Nations, now the Institut de France. The Tour de Bois, a vestige of the walls of Charles V and the last remains of the medieval castle of the Louvre, is also shown flanking Henry VI's Grand Galerie du Louvre on the right bank of the Seine. This, too, was demolished at roughly the same period due to the expansion of the new Louvre.

Paris was painted by a number of Dutch artists in the mid-17th Century. Depictions of the city by Abraham de Verwer, Renier Nooms (Zeeman), Pieter Wouwerman and Hendrick Mommers (who painted the same view as that depicted in the present picture) are in the Musée Carnavalet and the Louvre.