Follower of Willem Buytewech
The story
Follower of Willem Buytewech is the label for a picture that recalls Buytewech's manner but was painted by someone else, whose name is not known. It does not claim that the painter trained with him, and it allows for a date after his death in 1624.
Buytewech worked in Haarlem in the years when Frans Hals was making his name there, and pictures from their circle have been passed back and forth between the two names, and those of their followers, for more than a century. Under a label like this the decision can rest on physical evidence as much as on style, such as tree-ring dating of an oak panel, which can show that the wood was cut too late for Buytewech to have used it.
