In 1661 Louis XIV (1643-1715) became king of France and embarked on a series of military campaigns. During these campaigns, which took place in the 1660s and 1670s and were mainly directed at Flanders, the king’s principal painter Adam Frans van der Meulen followed the armies and carefully recorded the battles, towns and landscapes they encountered. The present drawing was probably drawn on the spot during one of these campaigns given its relatively small size and spontaneous character. While given to Daniël van Heil (1604-1664) at the time of the Van Parijs sale (see provenance), the drawing is in fact characteristic of Adam Frans van der Meulen. The handling of the landscape, the minute rendering of the background, the rendering of the trees with the rapid hatchings and curly outlines and the rendering of the village are all typical for the artist’s landscape drawings. The technique, which combines graphite (which was rarely used in 17th-century drawings) with pale green wash, is characteristic for the artist too. These characteristics can be observed, for example, in two views showing Mont-Cassel in the collection of the Mobilier National, Paris (inv. nos. 53 and 157) and two views showing Versailles, a panoramic landscape view with various towns, a view of Dinant, and another of Visé in the Louvre, Paris (inv. nos. 20072, 20073, 20082, 4897 and 4937, respectively.)

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