The present picture is one of an extensive series of small copies by Teniers after Italian paintings in the collection of his patron, the Archduke Leopald Wilhelm, governor of the Spanish Netherlands. These copies also served as the basis for a book of 243 engravings after the paintings called the Theatrum Pictorium, which was published at the artist's expense in 1660. The present lot is a copy of an early sixteenth century Venetian painting, whose present whereabouts is unknown. The old attribution of the prototype to Palma il Giovane is a confusion, since its style rather suggests Palma il Vecchio. The 1886 Marlborough sale in these Rooms included no fewer than 120 paintings from the series.