Probably Pierre Antoine Joseph Knijff, Chanoine;
His deceased sale, Antwerp, 18 July 1785, lot 141, for 98 Florins to Beekmans Leutzgen;
With Kleinberger, Paris, circa 1930;
With Vermeer Gallery, London, 1936.

Probably C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. III, London 1910, p. 535, no. 291b. 

"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 fine flat bevelled oak panel without a joint. The paint is unusually well preserved overall. There was some minute flaking in the past along the fine grain of the panel in the centre near the horizon. The denser light paint in this area has lost tiny pinpoint flakes along the grain and there are some minor retouchings in the lower sky. This part of the sky was also cleaned rather more than elsewhere, as tends to happen with horizons, while elsewhere the upper sky is finely intact. The upper left sky is in particularly beautiful condition, with remarkable, perfectly crisp detail in the bare branches of the tree. The treatment of the Inn and the peasants in the landscape has characteristically free, more open brushwork showing the ground in places. When this becomes more transparent with age the pentiments in the drawing for instance of the legs of the central horse can be seen. The distant horse with a peasant, on the horizon, is rather worn, but elsewhere the vigorous brushwork of the figures is rich and intact, including even those in dark, more vulnerable, pigments, such as the fine crouching figure on the bank to the left or the man carrying faggots. The base edge is slightly rubbed and the lower sky has scattered small retouchings, but overall the painting is in beautiful condition. 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."

Isack van Ostade's winter landscapes all date from a brief period between circa 1642 and his premature death in 1649.  Many of them are, like this picture, composed on a diagonal, with a cluster of figures and animals in the centre, a bank, often surmounted by an inn to one side, and a distant view to a horizon marked off by a windmill.  Ostade showed no marked preference for left or right receding diagonals.  Here, the faggot gatherer in the right foregound, deftly anchors the composition.  

Ostade's winter landscapes are original creations, and any debt to his possible teacher Salomon van Ruysdael is tenuous.  They were however enormously influential in their own right: on his Haarlem followers Philips Wouwerman and Claes Molenaer among others; and on 19th Century Dutch Romantic painters such as Leickert and Spohler.   

The description and measurements of Hofstede de Groot match the present work, but the former is too imprecise to allow c൩ertainty.