Acquired in the 1990s on the Paris art market by the present owners. 

The following condition report is provided by Rebecca Gregg, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. The single member panel appears in good condition; there are no significant planar deformations and no signs of adverse movement. The paint layers appear in good condition; there are no obvious recent damages or loss and the adhesion between the paint and ground layers and the support appears good. The painting appears to have been relatively recently conserved. There are small scattered retouchings throughout. There is a crack running 7cm from the lower edge, horizontally across the panel, which has been retouched. There appears to be a modern synthetic varnish layer present.
"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."

The composition, which was enormously popular in late 16^th and early 17^th century Flanders, ultimately derives from Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s drawing of 1568 in the Kupferstichkabinett, Hamburger Kunsthalle.¹ The drawing was engraved in 1570, probably by Pierre van der Heyden, and all subsequent paintings of the composition, of which there are many, are in the same sense as the engraving, which is to say the reverse sense of Bruegel’s original drawing.²

Though Bruegel seems to have conceived his design as a solitary, independent work, it soon became the representation of Summer in various series (both in print and paint) depicting the ‘Four seasons.’ Pierre van der Heyden joined his 1570 engraving of the Bruegel drawing with another, also made after a Bruegel drawing (dated 1565), depicting Spring, and two others copied from drawings by Hans Bol (now lost), dated 1569, that depict Autumn and Winter.³

 It is likely that the present example originally formed part of such a set of four paintings, as is the case with the 1607-dated version of the composition by Grimmer. It and its three companions, also dated 1607, are in the Koninklijk Museum, Antwerp.⁴  The present version differs🐻 in several details and shares a little more in common with Bruegel’s original; the Antwerp version, for example, includes a horse and cart in the upper left, where here and in the drawing a closed gate traverses the road, and the tree behind the drinking labourers is in fuller leaf in the Antwerp version, blocking the view through to the sea.

1. See P. & F. Roberts-Jones, Pierre Bruegel l’Ancien, Paris 1997, p. 49, reproduced fig. 58.
2. Ibid., fig. 59.
3. Spring, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, is in the Albertina, Vienna.
4. See R. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Jacob et Abel Grimmer, Brussels 1991, p.🦩 226, 229, cat. no. LV, reproduced plates 24, 25, 69, 70.