An extensive mountainous river landscape with figures conversing on a track, a village beyond

Joos de Momper was one of the most popular and important landscape painters in The Netherlands of the first quarter of the 17th Century. He received his initial training from his father, who registered his son as early as 1581 as a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, of which he himself was the Dean at the time. De Momper's pictures were already greatly valued during his lifetime; they were first mentioned in inventories from the early years of the 17th Century and he was praised by Van Mander as early as 1604. His mountain landscapes were often depicted in contemporary cabinet pictures by Frans Francken II, Willem van Haecht and David Teniers II.

Klaus Ertz believes the present picture to be an early work by De Momper; he dates it prior to 1600 (see Ertz, op. cit., p. 466). De Momper collaborated several times with Sebastian Vrancx, who painted the staffage for this composition, and a note confirming the collaboration of Vrancx and De Momper is recorded in Joos de Momper's inventory, dated 21 January 1623 (see Ertz, op. cit., p. 51).