As far as can be judged through the discoloured varnish, this painting seems to be a poorly executed work of little merit, but it may well be old and possibly of about the turn of the seventeenth century. The scene set in an Italianate landscape was a justification for the museum’s first ascription of it to the Dutch painter Pieter van Laer (1599-c. 1642); later an attribution to the Flemish Pieter van Bloemen (1657-1720), proposed by Blankert in 1968, was adopted. Although greys (horses) feature prominently in the latter’s oeuvre, the style of the present work suggests an earlier generation influenced by Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668), such as Jan Frans Soolmaker (fl. 1654-65) in whose small extant production a prancing or rather a rearing grey with its rider in attendance (as can just be made out in the present work) occurs on several occasions. But the association of this artist with the present painting is only very hesitantly brought into the discussion. Most likely it is an undistinguished, old copy of an as yet unidentified prototype, executed in Italy if the seeming red colour of the ground is a reliable indicator. A classification of Netherlandish School seems best in our present state of knowledge.
Gregory Martin, 2022
