Watermark: none visible through lining or in raking light.
The Library possesses two versions of this composition, both finished watercolors and both signed, one with the artist's initials (1962.2) and one with the name in full and the date 1673 (I, 133). Although each drawing may have been intended to stand as an independent work, they nonetheless served as preparatory studies for the artist's signed and dated painting of the following year, formerly in the collection of A. de Rothschild, Ascott, Wing, near Leighton Buzzard, Buckinghamshire (now the property of the National Trust).
Signed with initials on the faggot at left, in brown ink, "AV.(in ligature) O". Inscribed on the verso of the lining, in graphite, at upper center, "A. Ostade"; and at lower left, "Bale colln ["n" in superscript]". Stamped in lower right corner, in red ink, "M. K. & Co. / W.C. No. 1255" (the number in black ink).
Vos Jacobszoon, Jacob de, 1803-1878, former owner.
Revil, Narcisse, d. 1844 former owner.
Bale, Charles Sackville, 1791-1880, former owner.
Heseltine, J. P. (John Postle), 1843-1929, former owner.
Bale, Charles Sackville, 1791-1880, former owner.
Heseltine, J. P., former owner.
Adams, Frederick B., Jr., comp. Eleventh Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1961. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1961, p. 87-89, illus.
Pierpont Morgan Library. Review of Acquisitions, 1949-1968. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1969, p. 157.
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, under no. 91.
Jane Shoaf Turner, with contributions by Felice Stampfle, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, New York, 2006, cat. no. 190.