The painting entered the Museum holdings as an original work by Jan Both. In 1959 Blunt identifies it as the landscape listed in the 1701 inventory of the Palace of the Buen Retiro and maintains the attribution to Both, as does Roethlisberger (1961). However, Waddingham (1960) ascribes it to Herman van Swanevelt, an attribution backed by Luna (1984) and officially adopted by the Museum in 1985. This ascription is supported by Barghahn (1986), Galera Mendoza (2001), Capitelli (2003) and Steland (forthcoming).

The scene shows a Carthusian in a stark landscape setting. It may possibly be Saint Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian Order -one of the hermitages in the grounds of the Buen Retiro was devoted to him- in his retreat in the massif of Chartreuse, in the bishopric of Grenoble, where Saint Hugo, bishop of the diocese, had allowed him to establish himself along with six colleagues to live the life of prayer. Bruno founded the Order`s first monastery there in 1084. The monk stands at the entrance to a cave which houses a chapel with an altarpiece. In his right hand he holds one of the fruits (a tulip bulb) he has taken from the basket he carries in his left arm. In front of the cave stretches a garden formed by ornamental flowerbeds laid out around a fountain.

Both the garden and the fountain and flowers depicted (tulips, lilies, Madonna lilies, sunflowers) are Marian symbols. But the fountain may also allude to the spring which, according to tradition, emanated from the ground shortly after the monks established themselves there. If so, the scene would be set in Chartreuse, as would appear to be supported by the wooden huts and the small chapel dotting the landscape behind the garden wall, which, according to tradition, were part of this first monastery. Towards the background and in the distance it is possible to discern a sturdier construction which, as Luna points out, could allude to the second Carthusian monastery founded by Saint Bruno in 1090 in the Serra di Torre in Calabria, where he died around 1101.

The painting repeats the compositional structure and treatment of light found in the previous landscape. However, here the scene is framed on the left by a single tree. Looming behind it, in the mid-ground, there is also a rock face, but here it does not extend as far as the upper edge of the picture. The sky thus occupies more space than in the previous painting and the scene opens out more onto the landscape. The background is bathed in a warm dusk light. Standing out in the sombre foreground are the powerfully illuminated figure of the monk and the rocky crag behind him. The leaves of the tree on the left, rendered in the manner of small claws, and the trunks are characteristic of Van Swanevelt. The execution of the rocks reveals the influence of Cornelis van Poelenburch.

As with the previous picture, Steland relates this landscape to those in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome painted by Van Swanevelt towards 1633-34. It should be pointed out that a mountain massif similar to the one depicted here also appears in some of the etchings made by the painter in Paris many years later, such as La Montagne or The Great Waterfall. Scholars have also speculated about the authorship of the figure in this case. The X-ray shows that it was added after the completion of the rock, one of the facets of which was used to shape part of the sleeve of the arm that supports the basket. Waddingham (1960) suggests that it may be the work of the Frenchman Jacques Stella (1596-1657) or another painter from his circle or from that of Sébastien Bourdon (1616-1671); Capitelli (2004) suggests a painter from the circle of Andrea Sacchi (ca. 1599-1661) or Jan Miel (1599-1664), who arrived in Rome in 1636; and Steland proposes Jean Tassel (1608-1667), who is documented in Rome in 1634. However Russell (1982) also attributes it to the painter, as he sees a resemblance with the figure of the Magdalene in Noli me tangere, one of the landscapes Van Swanevelt painted for the Galleria Doria Pamphilj.

The authorship of the garden is also disputed -not only because the flowers, by any reckoning, are out of proportion with respect to the other elements of the composition, but because there is no other known still-life of flowers in Van Swanevelt`s paintings. The X-ray shows that they are superimposed over the walls separating the flowerbeds.

Waddingham describes the garden as Brueghelian. Capitelli believes it may possibly be the work of a Flemish still-life painter and Steland suggests a follower of Jan Brueghel the Elder (Text drawn from Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, 2009, p. 328).