Attributed to Simone Pignoni Florence 1611 - 1698

Lined canvas. The surface is thin, particularly the white clouds; very fine craquelure throughout. Under UV light: two small areas of inpainting at center in the sky and one at lower left.
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This painting would appear to be a small oil sketch for a larger canvas in a private collection (see Il Seicento Fiorentino: Pittura, Florence 1986, p. 425, cat. no. I.237).  It differs from the final, more horizontal canvas slightly, with the figures of Rachel and Jacob a bit closer together, and other small  variations, most noticeably the lack of a figure of a shepherdess at the extreme right.  The full scale canvas has a bibilical pendant, a Ruth and Boaz (also private collection) and the two have been dated stylistically to the early 1650's, suggesting a similar dating for the present sketch.