Cornelis van Poelenburgh

Probably identifiable with the painting sold at the Laprade sale, Paris, April 19, 1770, lot 24 ("Bartholome Breenburgh, Joseph vendu par ses freres a des marchands Ismaelites, cette composition est le 15 figures, dont dix de 4 puces de hauteur; des rochers, du paysage et des montagnes enrichissent le fond de ce tableau, qui est d'une coloeur fraiche et transparent: Il est peint sur cuivre et porte 13 ppuces de haut, sur 16 pouces de large'" [1,300 francs to Menagot]);
Samuel Hammond, 1872 (acording to an inscription on the reverse).
Probably the same painting in the Robert Flemming Crooks collection;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's,  April 10, 1933, lot 3;
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, January 24, 2003, lot 9.

Copper panel is slightly raised on far right edge. The sky at upper left is slightly thin in some areas, but this is not at all disturbing. Some areas of retouches are visible to the naked eye, these include retouches in some leaves of the branches extending from the tree into the sky and in the tree at the top of the rocky outcropping. U.V. reveals some small minor retouches throughout, but these have been applied very well. The varnish makes it somewhat difficult to see with U.V. what is going on in the rocky outcropping and vegetation at right, and it is possible that there has been some reworking in these areas. The foreground of this painting is particularly well-preserved. In a carved and black-painted wood frame.
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A student of Abraham Bloemart, Poelenburgh was born and spent nearly all of his working life in Utrecht. In 1617 he left for Rome where he focused on landscape and history paintings, becoming the most important early Italianate painter of Dutch origin; as a result, he became very popular with the important collectors. Prior to returning to Rome in 1623, he is recorded as working for the court of Cosimo II de' Medici in Florence. Poelenburgh's work influenced the style of the second generation of Dutch Italianate painters such as Jan Both and Nicolas Berchem.

This picture is an early example of Poelenburgh's Italianate style, as it does not yet fully embrace the warmer palette that he would utilize in his later career. An Arcadian landscape opens up from the covered foreground under which the scene is taking place. The palette of the sky is decidedly more grey than the works that would follow in years to come. His biblical figures however maintain their characteristic smoothness and have the delicacy of a miniature, which he also painted on occasion.