Footnotes

Provenance
Gustaf Adolf Sparre (1746-1794; his 1794 inv. no. 28), and thence by descent until offered
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 5 December 2007, lot 15
With David Koetser, Zurich (according to a label on the reverse)
Selling exhibition, Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 28 September 2018, lot 9, where purchased by the present owner

Exhibited
Kristianstad, Kristianstads Museum, Ur Gustav Adolf Sparres konstamling på Wanås, 12 February - 6 March 1977, no. 10

Literature
O. Granberg, Catalogue raisonné des Tableaux dans les collections privées de la Suède, Stockholm, 1885-6, p.20, no. 30
G. Göthe, Tafelsamlingen pa Wanås, Stockholm, 1895, p. 19, no. 33
O. Granberg, Inventaire Générale des Trésors d'Art... en Suède, vol. II, Stockholm, 1912, no. 154
C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibandes und Kritisches Verzeichnis......, vol. IX, Esslingen/Paris, 1926, pp. 348-9, no. 205 (as signature not certain)
I. Hasselgren, Konstsamlaren Gustaf Adolf Sparre 1746-1794, Gothenburg, 1974, pp. 115, 127, ill. p. 177
F. Robinson, Seventeenth Century Dutch Drawings from American Collections, exh. cat., Washington etc., 1977, p. 67, under no. 64
P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the seventeenth century, exh. cat., The Hague, 1981, p. 134, under no. 38
W.W. Robinson, Seventeenth Century Dutch Drawings. A Selection from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, exh. cat., Amsterdam etc., 1991, p. 164, under no. 73
J.M. Killian, The Paintings of Karel du Jardin 1626-1678. Catalogue Raisonné, Amsterdam, 2005, p. 229, no. B10, ill. plate 138, under Problematic Attributions (Killian has subsequently confirmed the attribution to Dujardin, see catalogue note)


Jennifer Kilian confirmed the attribution to Karel Dujardin at the time of the Sotheby's sale and confirmed it is an authentic work from the mid-1650s; therefore overturning her previous opinion which had been formed on the basis of a transparency.

The present work is stylistically close to Dujardin's work from 1654 in the collection of the Duke of Sutherland at Mertoun, Roxburghshire (see: Kilian, ibid, pp. 141-2, cat. no. 23, pl. 20).

A red chalk drawing, now in the Staten Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (inv.no. 9352), shows the same figure of the wading boy in the centre of the present composition (fig. 1). The drawing shows the boy, full-length, from behind lifting his shirt to keep dry but his legs and feet are not present in our picture.