A hunter saddling his horse and a shepherd family, an extensive landscape beyond

This painting it first came to light in 1996 but remained unknown to Birgit Schumacher at the time of her catalogue raisonné a decade later. When the painting reappeared at auction in 2007, Schumacher dated it to circa 1642-3 on account of its similarities with a slightly larger painting in the Schilderijenzaal Willem V, The Hague (inv. no. 222; see B. Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman: The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, I, Doornspijk, 2006, p. 242, no. A181; II, pl. 170). Both paintings depict a small group of figures saddling a horse at the center, with a wooded area to the left and dogs overlooking the landscape to the right. They likewise employ a similar monogram and palette of muted tones. These features can be found in a number of works datable to the early 1640s, including Wouwerman’s Halt of two riders in the Kunsthaus, Zurich (inv. no. 42; see Schumacher, op. cit., I, pp. 306-307, no. A340; II, pl. 41 and 312). The greater development of the landscape evident in this painting when compared with those in The Hague and Zurich led Schumacher to suggest that it probably dates to a slightly later period in Wouwerman’s career.

In this early period, Wouwerman’s paintings were strongly influenced by those of Pieter van Laer, who had settled in Haarlem in 1641 and whose drawings, according to Arnold Houbraken, Wouwerman acquired following the elder artist’s death in 1642. The close resemblance between this painting and van Laer’s work of a few years earlier further substantiates the early dating of this panel.