The painting entered the Museum`s holdings as an original work by Herman van Swanevelt, an attribution that has been maintained by subsequent catalogues. In 1973 Valdivieso identifies it as the landscape described in the inventory of 1701 and maintains the ascription to Van Swanevelt, which is also backed by Burke (1976), Luna (1984), Barghahn (1986), Galera Mendoza (2001) and Steland (forthcoming).

Barghahn misidentifies the landscape here as entry no. 196 in the inventory of the Palace of the Buen Retiro (Fernández Bayton 1981), which is how it is listed in the last general inventory of the Museum (1990). The description featured in that entry, Another Landscape of the same size and maker as the second to last. With some anglers a woman and a young boy, corresponds to Landscape with Fisherman Family at Dusk (P2141), while the landscape that occupies us here should be identified as entry no. 194 of that inventory.

It is a classical composition based on vertical and horizontal axes. However, unlike the horizontal landscapes with hermits, here the scenery extends into the background following the zigzagging course of the river between the two groups of trees that enclose the scene on either side. They infuse the composition with greater dynamism. The light enters from the left and illuminates the whole landscape, casting a shadow over the tree on the right and the figures next to it.

As Roethlisger (1983) suggests, this compositional structure appears to follow that of Landscape with Moses saved from the Waters, one of the paintings executed by Claude Lorrain for the Buen Retiro.

The handling of the vegetation and foliage is characteristic of Van Swanevelt. The iconographic group of the hunter talking to a person seated at the foot of a tree is repeated in various drawings and paintings by the artist, just as the bridge and the castle in the background are found in many of his landscapes. The X-ray image discloses the same manner of allocating space and rendering the trunk and leaves of the trees as in his horizontal landscapes. However, the handling of the background mountains is very similar to that revealed by the X-radiographs of the vertical landscapes of Jan Both, suggesting the involvement of the latter in the present painting.

The figures belong to the type that is characteristic of Van Swanevelt. Steland sees a connection between these and the ones that appear in the landscapes in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome. They have elongated calf muscles, vaguely classicist facial features and wooden movements. The X-radiograph shows that they are superimposed over the landscape (Text drawn from Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, 2009, pp. 331-332).