This painting entered the Museum as an original work by Jan Both, attribution that has been maintained in the catalogues until the present day. In 1973 Valdivieso identifies it as the picture listed in the 1701 inventory of the Palace of the Buen Retiro and retains the ascription to Jan Both, which is supported by Luna (1984) and Capitelli (2005). Burke (1976) refers to it without an attribution.

Barghahn (1986) ascribes it to Herman van Swanevelt, as does Steland (forthcoming), albeit with reservations. The scene represents two Carmelite friars in the forest, one seated and reading in the left foreground, and the other in the midground behind a hillock. Barghahn (1986) identifies the monk as Saint Albert of Sicily, provincial of the Carmelite Order on the island from 1296, who saved Messina from the famine caused by a siege in 1301. The poor condition of the earth pigments prevents much of the picture surface from being properly assessed, particularly the foreground, the original components of which can be gleaned from the print included in the collection of lithographs of the pictures of King Ferdinand VII, Colección litográfica de los cuadros del rey de España el señor don Fernando Séptimo, and from a copy located in a private collection.

Despite the evident resemblance of the compositional structure and diverse features depicted to Van Swanevelt`s landscapes with hermits, various compositional and stylistic elements support the attribution to Both: the introduction of a diagonal line that breaks the classicist structure of verticals and horizontals; the handling of the leaves and vegetation; the attention to the details of the relief of the terrain; the subtle colour gradation of the landscape in the distance; and, above all, the golden light that unifies the whole.

The circular building in the mid-ground, a recreation of the temple of Marcus Curtius (Rome), is found in a drawing signed by Both, St Theodore at the Foot of the Palatine, which Burke (1976, no. D-19) holds to be inspired on a work by Charles Cornelisz. de Hooch (ca. 1600/6-1638), Landscape with Christ on the Way to Emmaus (Amsterdam, Rikjsmuseum, inv. A2218), but which Steland (1988) believes to be drawn from the life in Rome.

In addition, the X-ray image shows that the trees, clouds and background mountains are executed in the same manner as in two of Jan Both`s vertical landscapes, Baptism of the Eunuch of Queen Candace (P2060) and Taking the Cattle out (P2061). As in the latter, certain elements were even added to the group of trees on the lefthand side during the execution process, such as the branch projecting rightward from the tree in the front, the two trees behind it and the small tree in the mid-ground.

The figure of the seated friar is superimposed over the landscape. It belongs to the type that populates the hermit scenes engraved by Jan`s brother, Andries (1612/13-1642), in Rome in the 1630s (Bartsch, vol. III, pp. 22-24). According to accounts by the painter and treatise writer Joachim von Sandrart, the brothers collaborated regularly during their sojourn in Rome (Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado. 2009, p. 330).