Work Notes: Attributed to Hobbema until 1880, when catalogued as Adriaen Verboom. Although this attribution seems not unreasonable, there are traces of a signature on the rocks, lower left, which cannot be Verboom's.Copy in New York, Seena and Arnold Davis coll., 1981.
Work Nationality: Dutch
Support: Panel
Provenance: London, Sir Francis Bourgeois, 1811; Bourgeois Bequest, 1811.
Inscriptions: Lower left corner: traces of a signature (illegible)
Further Information: Long thought to have been painted by a follower of Jacob van Ruisdael, this painting has only recently been identified as a work by Jan Vermeer van Haarlem I, who specialised in landscapes and winter scenes. There are stylistic similarities between the birch trees and other known works by the artist while a better reading of the signature on the rocks helped to support this new identification.