Young Shepherdess as Flora

In 1924 a sale in Paris dispersed the collection of the late August de Ridder, a collector from near Frankfurt, whose pictures had come to Paris from 1913 and been sequestered during the war. This panel was sold there as a Rembrandt, and it reached the Louvre under the same name in 1961, a gift of the collectors Victor and Hélène Lyon. It is now given to Govert Flinck and dated around 1637 to 1640. The girl is dressed as Flora, goddess of spring, with flowers in her hair and in her hand, and she is a shepherdess as well. The clue is the straw hat she holds behind her back. Two things are not as Flinck left them. The black background is a later repaint over what was probably light grey, and the oval may have been cut from an upright rectangle.