The Herengracht in Amsterdam

In April 1788, a year after Louis XVI dismissed him as his finance minister, Charles-Alexandre de Calonne sold his pictures in Paris. The dealer Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun wrote the catalogue and described this small panel as a view of a Dutch canal with figures by Adriaen van de Velde, the landscape painter Jan van der Heyden sometimes hired to people his streets. The claim stuck, and it was printed again when the picture came up for sale in 1857.

The Louvre now says the figures are certainly by van der Heyden himself. The canal is the Herengracht, the most prestigious of Amsterdam's three main ring canals and one of his favourite places to paint, and the three rich patrician houses with their gables are buildings scholars have been able to identify. He painted it sometime around 1668 to 1674, and a very close second version is in a private collection.