School of Haarlem, circa 1615

Ludwig Knaus (d. 1910), Berlin, before 1910 (as Frans Hals);

His estate sale, Berlin, Lepke, 30 October 1917, lot 11;

Camillo Castiglione, Vienna;

By whom sold, Amsterdam, Frederik Muller & Co., 17 November 1925, lot 63 (as Frans Hals, for NGL. 25,000); 

With K.W. Bachstitz, The Hague, by 1926 (as Frans Hals; Stock no. Ru. 1207);

Fritz Thyssen, Berlin, by 1926 and confiscated from him by the National Socialist Authorities 1939;

In storage with the Folkwang Museum Essen from February 1940 (recovered from Warstein);

Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point, after 1945;

Restituted to the Thyssen family by the British administration after May 1949 and thence by descent to Federico Augusto Count Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö;

From whom acquired.

E.W. Moes, Frans Hals, sa vie et son oeuvre. Translated by J. de Bosschere. Brussels 1909, no. 167 (as Frans Hals);

C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, vol. III, Frans Hals. Esslingen/Paris 1909, no. 260 (as very early Frans Hals, c. 1610-12, notes that at Berlin exhibition in 1890 several connoisseurs called it Thomas de Keyser);

W. Bode and M.J. Binder, Frans Hals, sein Leben und seine Werke, Berlin 1914, no. 87;

W.R. Valentiner, Frans Hals...Klassiker der Kunst vol. XXVIII, 2nd rev. ed. Stuttgart/Berlin/Leipzig 1923, no. 7 (c. 1615, neither Thomas de Keyser nor Willem Buytewech but Hals);

M.J. Friedländer, in: Kunst und Künstler 24 (1926), p. 170 (as Hals or Buytewech);

G. Poensgen, "Beiträge zur Kunst des Willem Buytewech," in Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen vol. XLVII (1926), pp. 96-97 (as Buytewech, c. 1615);

T. Borenius, Haus Thyssen, Die Sammlung, Berlin 1926, no. 26, reproduced (as Frans Hals);

J.S. Kunstreich, Der 'Geistreiche Willem': Studien zu Willem Buytewech, Kiel 1959, p. 31, no. XVIII (doubts attribution to Buytewech);

E. Haverkamp-Begemann, Willem Buytewech, Amsterdam 1959, p. 76, no. 13 (as possibly by Buytewech);

S. Slive, Frans Hals, London 1974, vol. 3, p. 142, no. D37, reproduced fig. 158 (as probably Buytewech);

C. Grimm, Frans Hals. The Complete Work, forthcoming (as probably Buytewech).