A skirmish of cavalry

Throughout the 17th century there was a demand for a wide variety of military subjects in painting, ranging from soldiers pillaging through actual battle scenes to guardrooms and soldiers brothels. This picture is relatively rare in showing a cavalry skirmish where the interest of the picture is equally divided between the military event and the landscape setting. The picture could therefore be appreciated on different levels. The artist is known to have been in Delft in the first half of the 17th century. His career has to be constructed from a handful of surviving battle scenes and military pieces. He may have worked in other genre that have not survived or been identified.