An attribution to Joachim Wtewael was tentatively advanced by Lindeman, loc. cit., 1929, by comparison with his Christ blessing the Children of 1621 in the Hermitage (Lowenthal, op. cit., 1986, no.A-85 and pl.117). Dr. Anne Lowenthal, who regards the foreground figures as typical of the work of Peter, also compares the symmetrical, planar composition, the architectural setting and the two background figures beneath the arch to similar features in the Leningrad picture (it should also be noted that the head of the old woman to the left of the arch in the Hermitage painting recurs on the far right in the present work) and suggests that the present picture may be the result of a collaboration between father and son.

As Professor Slatkes points out, loc. cit., the composition would seem to have been inspired by Baburen's painting of the same subject, dated 1622, in the National Gallery at Oslo (his fig.13). Dr. Lowenthal observes that a comparison of the man on the far left in the present work with Joachim's portrait of his son in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht (her no.A-96 and pl.132), suggests that it is a self-portrait