An extensive river landscape with millers on a road approaching a watermill, and a horse-drawn carriage with flour sacks crossing a ford in the foreground, a possible view of the Aartal valley beyond

We are grateful to Dr. A. Wied for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs; he compares the landscape in the background with that of four other works mentioned in his catalogue raisonné (op.cit., nos. 69-70 and 85-6). It was suggested by Heinz Friederichs ('Die ältesten Darstellungen des Aartales. Letzte Gemälde des Lucas van Valckenborch', Heimat-Jahrbuch des Untertaunuskreises Bad Schwalbach, 1960, pp. 96-100) that the landscape might be identified as the Aartal valley near Bad Schwalbach, where Lucas stayed at some point before 1596.

The present lot is one of the five recorded works by the artist to incorparate the subject matter of the watermill.