A wooded landscape with cattle in a clearing

The artist was one of a number of landscapists who moved from the Southern Netherlands to the United Provinces at the beginning of the seventeenth century; in 1602 he was living in Utrecht, moving in 1610 to Amsterdam. Houbraken records that the young artist 'who had learned to paint in his youth for his own pleasure (as was common at the time), applied himself to portraiture to earn money, since he and his father found themselves stripped of their belongings'. None of his early portraiture is known to survive, however, and Houbraken notes that he soon 'turned to painting landscapes afterwards as well, taking Roelandt Savery and David Vinckboons as his examples'.