Adriaen Stalbemt became a master in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1609, and it seems likely that the Rijksmuseum landscape was executed circa 1611 when the support of oak from the Baltic /Polish area has been calculated by Klein as ready for use. Likely to be the earliest dated work by Stalbemt is a landscape of 1604.14 Thereafter there are apparently no further securely signed and dated extant works by Stalbemt until 1614,15 but the Israelites Bringing Offerings for the Building of the Temple at Pommersfelden, attributed to Stalbemt by Andrews, which is on a copper support made by Pieter Staes, dated 1609.16 The works all differ in style; indeed Stalbemt’s artistic course in his earliest years of activity remains difficult to chart. However, there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of this signed work. The Amsterdam landscape is in the same vein as Anton Mirou’s (1578-1621/27) landscape of 1608 in the museum (SK-A-755). Influential in its conception may have been the early forest hunting scenes by or attributed to Jan Brueghel I (1568-1625) and Pieter Brueghel II (1564-1638).17 Another more direct source may have been a forest scene with a shooter by a fallen tree engraved by Aegidius Sadeler (c. 1570-1629) after a design by Roelant Savery (1576-1639).18 Ertz and Nitze-Ertz suggest a date of 1620-30 for the present work, which granted the Mannerist idiom seems too late. Gregory Martin, 2022