Pastoral scene, attributed / Circle of Jan Siberechts 1627 Antwerp – c. 1703 London,

In a French frame with strongly projecting floral and foliate decoration, gilded.

In an upright rectangular format, a willow tree typical of Siberechts, its branches rising into the slightly clouded sky. In front of the tree lies a shallow riverbed, in which a cow wades with a calf standing before her, while behind them a peasant woman walks, her gaze directed out of the composition. In the left background, an architectural element is suggested among the bushes. The scene is characteristic of Siberechts. Comparable works with figures and animals wading through shallow water are to be found, for example, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 9106) and in the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, the latter dated 1685 (inv. no. 2182). A painting with a similarly prominent pollard willow is preserved in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. no. 1185), as well as another closely comparable painting in the same museum (inv. no. 707).

Note:
Jan Siberechts, baptized in Antwerp in January 1627, moved to London in 1672, where many of his paintings were produced. He died there in 1703. Accordingly, many of his works remain in London collections.

Further references:
Laura Wortley, Jan Siberechts in Henley-on-Thames, in: Burlington Magazine, 149, 2007, pp. 148–157.
Gregory Rubinstein, The Drawings of Jan Siberechts, in: Master Drawings, 50, 2012, pp. 365–396.
Sander Karst, Off to a new Cockaigne. Dutch migrant artists in London, 1660–1715, in: Simiolus, 37, 2013–2014, pp. 25–60.