Inscribed at lower right, in an old hand, in black chalk, "4"; at lower left edge, in graphite, "Acuyp". On the verso, in brown ink, at lower left, "3"; and below this, "e/".
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, I, 123, repr. (as Cuyp throughout).
Stampfle, Felice. Rubens and Rembrandt in Their Century : Flemish and Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century from The Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1979, no. 105, repr.
Jane Shoaf Turner, with contributions by Felice Stampfle, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, New York, 2006, cat. no. 55.
Watermark: none.
All of the elements of the present sheet are found, with some variations, in Cuyp's painting of the late 1640s known as the "Large Dort", in the National Gallery, London. Both of the cows appear in at least two other paintings: "Peasants and Cattle by the River Merwede" (early 1650s), also in the National Gallery, London, and "Landscape with Shepherds and Cows" (early 1650s) in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne. The standing cow that fixes its gaze at the viewer is included in two other paintings by the artist, the "Negro Page" (1645-9), in the British Royal collection, and the "Horseman with Cowherds in a Landscape" (perhaps later 1650s), in the National Gallery, London.
Aylesford, Heneage Finch, Earl of, 1786-1859, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.