A copy of this painting by school of Brueghel in Stuttgart, Wurttembergische Staatsgalerie, cat. 1931. #612 (copper, 46 x 67.2). Part of a series of the elements with #590, 591, and 613.

Both Ertz and Luk Pijl claim that the "picture with animals" mentioned in Brueghel's letters of 1606-8 must be some lost work because the description is too vague to identify with any particular painting, and the current work must actually date from c. 1615 on stylistic grounds. This is quite a stretch: the animals in the present work are clearly related to ones in earlier paradise landscapes and not at all to the ones he was executing by ca. 1615. Furthermore, Jan stresses in his letters that the "picture with animals" is the same size as his (first) flower painting for Borromeo, which is the case for the Louvre painting and is not Jan's standard size. I am therefore certain that the Louvre painting is Jan's "picture with animals" of 1606-7. Crivelli had identified the present work as being the one mentioned in Jan's letters of 1606-8: pp. 94-97.

First mentioned in letter to Borromeo of April 14, 1606: after finishing the flowers he will start a painting of animals of the "ordinary size." On August 25 1606 he says it will be the same size as the flower painting (which it was, considerably larger than "the ordinary size" of c. 25 x 35 cm). By Feb. 1 1608 Borromeo has received the animal painting and Brueghel is glad he is satisfied with it.