A view in the Thames Valley with a figure by a pond in the foreground

Jan Siberechts had become acquainted with George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham in 1670 when the latter was travelling in the Southern Netherlands. Between 1672-3 Sieberechts worked at Buckingham's country house, Cliveden in Buckinghamshire and spent the next two decades travelling widely in England. The present work appears to belong to a group of landscapes that the artist painted in the Thames Valley, near the town of Henley. Ellis Waterhouse writes of his 'English river valleys which are almost the beginnings of native landsacpe'. In fact, the influence of Sieberchts, in landscapes such as the present one, can be seen in the work of a later generation of British landscape painters, including George Lambert and the early works of Thomas Gainsborough.

Dr. Walter Bernt first proposed the attribution to Siberechts in 1974 and his opinion has recently been endorsed by Marijke de Kinkelder of the RKD.