Comparable works by Jan Brueghel the Younger and Frans Wouters: Diana's sleeping nymphs observed by satyrs, late 1630s, copper, 27,9 x 38,1 cm, private collection / The drunken Hercules between nymphes and satyrs, beginning of the 1640s, copper, 61 x 80,5 cm, private collection.

Other comparable works: Jan Brueghel the Younger: Entry into Noah's Arc, 1630s, copper, 56 x 88 cm, Madrid, Museo del Prado, inv. no. 1407 / Frans Wouters: Die Zeit enthüllt die Wahrheit, 1637, wood, 42 x 46,5 cm, 1637, Mauerbach-Auktion in Vienna, 29.10. 1996, lot 63.

We would like to thank Canon Nigel Nicholson, USA, for kindly providing additional information regarding provenance, and Hans Vlieghe, Rubinianum Antwerp, and Bettina Werche, Weimar, for kindly providing additional information in connection with the attribution the figures. We would like to thank Klaus Ertz, Lingen, for confirming the authenticity from the original..

Collection of the Nicholson Family, Balrath, Balrath Bury House (Country Meath, Ireland) / collection Gilbert de Poulton Nicholson of Balrath (1835–1899), Coburg / his son Gilbert William de Poulton Nicholson (1878–1949) / 1924 collection Kurt Rohde, Berlin / 1938–43 deposited with Elisabeth Berbig, Dresden / collection Elisabeth Rohde, Berlin.

Source, collection Rohde-Hinze: annotated auction catalogue: Sammlung Gilbert de Poulton Nicholsen. Gemälde Alter Meister, Rudolph Lepke’s Kunst-Auctionshaus, Berlin, catalogue 1918, lot 56, ill. plate 2, 8 April 1924 (6.600 RM) (as Jan Brueghel the Elder and Hendrick van Balen) / book inventory no. 146, as "Gemälde“