Follower of Pieter Bruegel the Elder

With Frederick Mont, New York, by 1953 (as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, according to a note in the photo archive of M.J. Friedländer);

Private collection, Switzerland, by 1956 (according to the Marburg Archive);

Heinrich Becker, Dortmund, by 1967;

Anonymous sale, Lucerne, Galerie Fischer, 25 May 1982, lot 291 (as Pieter Bruegel the Elder);

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 19 May 1994, lot 207 (as Jan Mattys);

With Newhouse Gallery, New York;

From whom acquired by the grandparents of the present owner, 1996.

F. Grossmann, Bruegel: The Complete Edition of Paintings, London 1955, p. 189, cat. no. 1, reproduced (as the earliest known painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder);

H. Arthur Klein, ed., The Graphic Worlds of Peter Bruegel the Elder, Mineola, New York 1963, pp. x, 30 (as the earliest preserved painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder);

C. de Tolnay, “Newly Discovered Miniatures by Pieter Bruegel the Elder,” in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 107, no. 744, March 1965, p. 110, note 3 (as the earliest known painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder);

F. Grossmann, Bruegel: The Complete Edition of Paintings, London 1966, revised edition, p. 189, cat. no. 1, reproduced plate 1 (as probably the earliest known painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder);

R. Fritz, Sammlung Becker I Gemälde alter Meister, Dortmund 1967, cat. no. 25, reproduced (as the earliest known painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, dated circa 1552-1553);

P. Bianconi, Bruegel, Milan 1967, p. 88, cat. no. 5, reproduced (as Pieter Bruegel the Elder);

P. Bianconi, Pieter Bruegel: The Complete Paintings, 1969, p. 87, cat. no. 4, reproduced p. 88;

J. Müller Hofstede, “Rubens in Rom 1601-1602. Die Altargemälde für Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme," in Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, vol. 12, 1970, p. 90, note 95 (as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and as a view of ships fleeing the burning of Sodom and Gomorra);

W. Gaunt, Marine Painting: An Historical Survey, Amsterdam 1975, p. 246 (as by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and attributed to the artist's early period);

T. Gerszi, “Bruegels Nachwirkung auf die niederländischen Landschaftsmaler um 1600,” in Oud Holland, vol. 90, no. 4, 1976, p. 215, note 33;

M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting: Pieter Bruegel, vol. XIV, Brussels 1976, p. 51, under note 32 (as published by Grossmann in 1955 in the first edition of his catalogue as an the earliest known painting Bruegel, although not appearing in the third edition of Grossmann's catalogue in 1973).