Follower of Aelbert Cuyp

This picture was owned by one of the most important collectors of the mid 19th century, Anatole Demidoff Ist Prince of San Donato (1813-1870). Born in St. Peterburg, Anatole was one of the most flamboyant members of the Demidoff dynasty. A man of wide-ranging interests and hugly energetic. He was a businessman, an industrialist, an explorer and a highly cultivated art collector. He was well travelled and had houses in Paris and Florence, where he entertained on a lavish scale. He knew many painters and commissioned works from Paul Delaroche (The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, in the National Gallery, London) and Eugène Delacroix (Scenes from the Life of Christopher Colombus), among others. He had a tempestous marriage with Princess Mathilde Bonapart from 1840-6, and he even acquired Napoleons former house on the Isle of Elba, which he turned into a museum in 1859.