Watermark: lined.
Acquired as a study by the Dutch artist Pieter Boel for a Gobelins tapestry, this sheet was eventually reassigned to the French animalier Francois Desportes. While the sheet is not the work of Desportes, it does copy animals found in his works. The dog is copied from an oil sketch of a hound found in the collection of 600 such studies by Desportes purchased by Louis XIV from Desportes' nephew. The cache was intended to supply the painters at the Sevres porcelain factory and the students at the Academie with study material.
Boel, Pieter, 1622-1674, Formerly attributed to.
Mower, Margaret, former owner.
Pierpont Morgan Library. Review of Acquisitions, 1949-1968. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1969, p. 133 (as attributed to Pieter Boel)
Adams, Frederick B., Jr., ed. Fourteenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1965 & 1966. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1967, p. 120 (as Pieter Boel)