Cornelis van Poelenburgh

Possibly Etienne Francois, Duc de Choiseul, Paris;
Possibly his sale, Paris, 6 April 1772, lot 47 (as by Bartholomeus Breenbergh);
Anonymous sale, Malmö, Sweden, Falkkloo's, 15 November 1997, lot 496 (as Attributed to Cornelis van Poelenburgh);
With Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna;
From whom purchased by the present collector.

N. Sluijter-Seijffert, Cornelis van Poelenburch 1594/5-1667: The paintings, Philadelphia 2016, pp. 90-92, 191, 370, cat. no. 241, reproduced in color. 

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work on copper is in very good state. The copper is flat and the paint layer is stable. The painting is clean, varnished and retouched. There is no abrasion to the details. The retouches are very small and accurate. These are present in a few spots in the lower left and upper center sky, but otherwise the condition is extremely good.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

ENGRAVED:
Pierre-Francois Basan, 1770 (in reverse; as by Bartholomeus Breenbergh, inscribed: Du Cabinet de MC le Duc du Choiseul/ De la grandeur de 21 pouces sur 16).

Poelenburgh executed another version of this landscape: the present work and the one in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. GG 796). Both pictures are of almost identical dimensions and composition, though the Vienna version lacks the figures of the two herdsmen in the lower left foreground. That these two works are so close in design has led to confusion over their early provenance. It appears that one of them was part of the collection of Etienne Francois, Duc de Choiseul, and was subsequently sold in his 1772 sale in Paris. Pierre-Francois Basan's 1770 engraving, which includes an inscription stating that it is after the Duc de Choiseul picture, depicts the same staffage present in this work, but absent from the Vienna version.  This may suggest that this painting is the Duc de Choiseul picture, though such an observation cannot definitively clarify the confusion in provenance.