A boar hunt in a wooded landscape

This picture is an apparently unrecorded copy after Rubens's famous picture in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie (W. Adler, CRLB, Part XVIII (I), Landscapes, 1982, no. 18), which was probably painted circa 1616. Adler lists a number of copies by Jan Wildens, the artist often then called on by Rubens to contribute the landscapes in his large figure compositions. Lucan van Uden, who was a young landscape painter, probably present in Rubens's studio around this time, is likely in the case of the present picture to have executed the landscape. He painted other copies after Rubens's landscapes at about this time (see below). Van Uden was often to rely on other artists to provide the staffage, and it is uncertain whether the figures here are by him. They differ in handling of the animals and peasants in his copy (Anonymous sale; Christie's, 11 December 1992, lot 220) of The Watering Place (National Gallery, no. 4815, Adler, no. 25) and again from those in his partial copy (offered in these Rooms, 23 May 1986, lot 122) after The Farm at Laeken (The Royal Collection, Adlers no. 63). He also made etchings after these paintings (Hollstein, XXX, 1986, Van Uden, nos. 42 and 43).
Notable here is the pentimento in the left hand of the white shirted hunter. Whether this corresponds to an alteration in the Dresden picture is not known. In the painting a hunstman has fallen belly-first into the pool; here he appears to lie on his back.