Lucas van Uden Antwerp 1595 - 1672

Otto Schaetzker, Vienna, before the Second World War;
Oscar Klein, Vienna by 1935,
Thence by descent to the present owner.

G. Glück, Die Landschaften des Peter Paul Rubens, Vienna 1945, p. 56, no. 7 (as probably by L. Van Uden)
W. Adler, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Part XVIII, vol. 1, Landscapes and Hunting Scenes, under cat. no. 19, p. 80, copy 4.

Landscape with a Cart Crossing a Ford  is a close repetition of a composition by Rubens, of around 1616,  now in the Hermitage, Leningrad (see W. Adler, cat. no. 19 above).  The major difference is van Uden's elimination of the rider on the near horse.  Although it has long been thought that van Uden was a member of Rubens's workshop and provided landscape backgrounds for some of the master's compositions, there is no documentary evidence to support the assumption.  Nonetheless, he clearly knew Rubens' work very well, for he copied several other compositions, including the Landscape with Uylysses and Nausicaa, in the Pitti Palace, Florence, as well as borrowing specific motifs from the older artist.