_Sebastien Bourdon_ (French: 1616-1671).
This picture was a great favourite with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom
it once belonged. He cited it, together with a picture by Salvator
Rosa, to the students of the Academy (Discourse xiv.) as an instance
of the "poetical style of landscape," calling particular attention to
the "visionary" character of "the whole and every part of the scene."
The subject is the return of the ark by the Philistines to the valley
of Bath-shemesh, as described in I Samuel vi. 10-14. The painter was
one of the original twelve _anciens_ of the old French Academy of
painting, of which he died rector; he had formerly been painter to
Queen Christina of Sweden, to whose country he had fled as a Protestant.