Four greyhounds in a wooded landscape

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD and Professor Susan Koslow for noting that the two main greyhounds in the present picture, dating to around 1660, appear to be based on the oil on canvas of circa 1616 in the Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum, Brunswick (see fig. 1), which has variously been given to Frans Snyders (see R. Klessmann, Die Flämischen Gemälde des 17. und 18 Jahrhunderts, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, Hirmer, 2003, no. 95); Rubens' Studio (see H. Robels, Frans Synders, Munich, 1989, pp. 121, 493-4, no. A SK 4) and the studio of Jan Breughel I. Another closely-related sketch of hounds, perhaps by two hands, was recorded in the Speyaert van Woerden collection, The Hague (as around Jan Brueghel I and Peter de Vos; see fig. 2). These hounds appeared in Rubens' Venus Mourning the Death of Adonis (formerly with Duits; see M. Jaffé, The Death of Adonis by Rubens, Duits Quarterly II, no. II, 1967, p. 8f, 16) and one hound appeared on the far right side of Rubens' Venus and Adonis in the Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf of c. 1610-11. The second hound from the left in the present picture also appears with the same markings in the signed and dated Hunter in a Landscape by Jan Wildens of 1624 (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), in which the hounds were probably painted by Paul de Vos.