Attributed in the inventories to Jan Vermeer van Haarlem, this work is an example of traditional Dutch landscape painting.

There were two Jan van der Meers in Haarlem with very similar styles: one born in 1628 and dying in 1691; the other, his son, born in 1656 and passed away in 1705. The treatment of the trees, the main element in the composition, would suggest the former, also known as Vermeer the Elder, as the most likely author of this work given its similarity with Landscape with Farm at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Jan van der Meer has frequently been mistaken with other painters active at the same time, like Jan van der Meer van Utrecht (active in the 17^th century) and with Salomon van Ruysdael (ca. 1602-1670). In the case of the former, the confusion is exclusively, due to the name as well as to a possible trip to Italy which the painter from Utrecht would have made and the one from Haarlem did not. In the case of Ruysdael, the confusion may be explained by the similar style of their landscapes, not surprising given that both were active in the same city. The way of suggesting depth in the landscape through the arrangement of the trees, one in the middle ground and a smaller one immediately behind, as well as the division of the painting into three quarters sky and one quarter earth, is common to Ruysdael and van der Meer.