On entering the Museum this painting was inventoried as a product of the Sevillian school, though the 1876 catalogue lists it as a work executed in the style of Jan Both. Valdivieso (1973) considers it to be an eighteenth-century Italian work, while Barghahn (1986) identifies it as one of the landscapes in the Palace of the Buen Retiro inventory, though in fact neither the measurements nor the description match.

The current condition of the painting makes it difficult to asses the work properly and, consequently, to attribute it with certainty to a particular artist. Nevertheless, on the grounds of its iconography, it may be related to the Landscape with Tower Ruins (Vienna, Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste) painted by Jan Both in Rome, of which there is an exact replica in the Museo di Capodimonte (inv. 84577) and a signed variant in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, which Trenk believes was painted in Utrecht during the years following the painter`s return from Italy. Burke (1976) relates these two works to the landscapes executed by Both for the Palace of the Buen Retiro.

The work here is presumably a variation on the Boijmans van Beuningen painting. However, the exclusion of the background landscape that characterises Both`s views and the consequent lack of spatial depth suggest that it was made by a follower, perhaps Adam Pynacker (ca. 1620-1673), though Walter Liedtke has advanced the name of Johan de Lagoor (1618/27-1660) as possible author of the canvas (Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, 2009, p. 297).