Philips Wouwerman Haarlem 1619 - 1668

Jan Messchert van Vollenhoven (1812-1881), Amsterdam;
His deceased sale, Amsterdam, 29 March 1892, lot 16, for 5,000 florins;
   Possibly Miéville;
   His sale, London, Christie's, 29 April 1899, lot 92, for 390 Guineas (Hofstede de Groot no. 835);
Vischer Boelger, Basel, around 1930;
Thence by descent until sold, Monaco, Christie's, 7 December 1987, lot 15, for 666,000 Francs, on behalf of the father of the present owner. 

Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Utrecht, Centraal Museum, I Bamboccianti.  Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock, Cologne, 25 August - 17 November 1991; Utrecht, 6 December 1991 - 9 February 1992, no. 40.1;
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, inv. Dep. 567, on loan, 1991-2004.

C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. II, London 1909, p. 526, no. 834 (perhaps identical with no. 835);
W. Maier-Preusker, in D. Levine & E. Mai (ed.), I Bamboccianti.  Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock, exhibition catalogue, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 25 August - 17 November 1991; Utrecht, Centraal Museum, 6 December 1991 - 9 February 1992, p. 302, cat. no. 40.1, reproduced in colour on p. 303;
R. van Bühren, in E. Mai (ed.), Das Kabinett des Sammlers, Cologne 1993, pp. 286-7, no. 114, reproduced;
B. Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman, Doornspijk 2006, vol. I, p. 283, cat. no. A282, reproduced vol. II, plate 263.

Although Wouwerman dated very few of his pictures, this is certainly a late work, and one can be assigned, as Birgit Schumacher suggests, to circa 1665-68, the last few years of his life[1].  The subject should be considered a sub-genre of his numerous military subjects, and it is intriguing that the majority of them depict quotidian aspects of the life of a campaigning army and its civilian camp-followers: encampments, sutler's booths and tents with figures taking refreshment or amusing themselves, or as here the ordered chaos of an army on the march, rather than true battle scenes.  Of the nine paintings that Schumacher lists of this subject, seven can be dated to the last decade of Wouwerman's career, and many of them have similar rich smoky skies with warm-toned skies and misty distances as the present picture[2].

Schumacher lists a copy, in a collection in Malmö, Sweden.

1.  See under Literature
2.  Idem, vol. 1, pp. 282-5, nos. A278-A286, reproduced vol. 2, plates 259-268, and colour plates 37 & 38.