Matthijs Naiveu Leiden bapt 1647 - 1726 Amsterdam

Scudamore Griffiths (1868-1968), Bedfont House, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, by whom bought after the First World War;
Thence by descent.

Naiveu started to paint outdoor theatrical perfomances with harlequins and Commedia dell'Arte figures in the 1680s.  Quite different from the Quacksellers and the Rhetoricians' performances of Jan Molenaer and Jan Steen, this was a genre that he pioneered, but one which became popular in the 18th Century in the work of members of the Horemans family, and ultimately, Cornelis Troost and his followers.  The adoption of such a new range of subject matter seems to have followed Naiveu's move to Amsterdam in 1678, where his appointment as hop inspector did not seem to stem his output, but there is no obvious explanation as to why such a move might have sparked the change, and Naiveu's style retained the characteristics of the Leiden school thereafter.  The landscape setting of the present picture does perhaps reflect the influence of the Amsterdam marine and topography painters Abraham and Jacobus Storck.

Moored at the quay is an English States Yacht, and the couple promenading may thus be members of the English royal family..