Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 10 November 1997, lot 109, where purchased by Koetser;
With David Koetser, Zurich, from whom a🎉cquired by the present collector.

Laren, Singer Memorial Foundation, Modernen van Toen 1570 - 1630, 15 June - 1 September 1963;
Cremona, Museo Civico Ala Ponzone, Bruehgel - Brueghel, Tradizione e Progresso: Una Famiglia di Pittori Fiaminghi tra Cinque e Seicento, 1998, no. 49.

K. Ertz, in Brueghel - Brueghel, Tradizione e Progresso: Una Famiglia di Pittori Fiaminghi tra Cinque e Seicento, exhibition catalogue, Cremona 1998, cat. no. 49.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a tiny copper panel, which is perfectly flat and undamaged. There is one brief scratch in the lower left corner a couple of millimetres long. The exceptionally beautiful state of the paint stands as a measure of unchanging ageless material and virtuoso technique. The only microscopic trace of past restoration is the slightest thinness around the figure raising his whip in the central cart. There is a gentle patina. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

According to Klaus Ertz's discussion in the 1998 Cremona exhibition catalogue, this exquisite little copper appears to be the smallest from a series of four miniature landscapes painted by Jan Brueghel the Elder in circa 1610; an important period in Brueghel's oeuvre.¹ The other three from the series, each signed, have been dispersed - two of them are in private collections, and the third is in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.  This dating is supported by the Peeter Stas coppersmith's stamp, which is of a type found on the copper supports of paintings dating from circa 1606 onwards, some of which bear stamped dates from the years 1606, 1607, 1608 and 1610.²  

Dr. Klaus Ertz suggested the possibility that, using the aid of a magnifying glass, Brueghel would have painted these coppers simultaneously in successive phases.

1. See Ertz, under Literature.
2. See J. Wadum, in M.K. Komanecky (ed.), Copper as Canvas. Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on Copper 1575-1775, exhibition catalogue, Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, 19 December 1998 - 28 February 1999; Kansas, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 28 March - 14 June 1999; The Hague, Mꦿauritshuis, 26 June - 22 August 19💧99, pp. 102-7, reproduced figs. 5.13-19.