An extensive winter river landscape with the Flight into Egypt, a sportsman and his hound, a wood gatherer trundling a wheelbarrow and a peasant woman and her child crossing a bridge, a watermill and an abbey beyond

Denis van Alsloot, a tapestry maker's son, joined the painters' guild in Brussels in 1599. He was the official painter to Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella, for whom he created landscape paintings, designs for tapestries and images of court festivities.

Alsloot's paintings are rare: at present circa thirty works are known by the artist. In his landscapes, such as the present lot, Alsloot was influenced by those of Gillis van Coninxloo and the landscape painting of the late 16th century. He was also inspired by the natural world of the forests of Soignes (near Brussels).

The buildings in the present lot are perhaps to be found in the forest of Soignes, as Alsloot's landscapes are generally accurate topographically.