Adriaen van de Venne’s winter landscapes are among the most beautiful works of their type in the early seventeenth century, and among his northern Netherlandish contemporaries perhaps only Hendrick and Barent Avercamp could match them for their detailed observation of the landscapes and especially the character of its inhabitants. Their masterfully drawn and lively little figures, drawn from all social classes, reveal an extraordinary expressivity that brings alive the little incidents of a winter’s day almost exactly four hundred years ago.

This panel was very likely painted in Middelburg, where Van de Venne had been resident since at least 1614 and perhaps as early as 1608. It forms one of a small number of winter landscapes that he painted there before his departure for The Hague in 1624. In size and format it can be closely compared to the winter landscape of 1614 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, and was very probably painted at around the same date (fig. 1).¹ Both panels are composed very much according to Flemish models, with the left of the composition anchored by trees, leading to a more expansive diagonally receding landscape on the right, populated by numerous figures, sleighs and very similar tall buildings. Such landscapes were composed singly but also in pairs with a summer scene. Van de Venne varied the size of his winter scenes; some are quite small, while the largest and probably finest example, that sold London, Replica Shoes 's, 4 July 2005, lot 25, was painted in 1620 on a panel over a meter wide.²

This panel is distinguished by the extraordinary characterization that Van de Venne brings to the figures in all his landscapes, and which sets him apart from his contemporaries in Middelburg and elsewhere. As seems to have been his custom, a few are evidently portraits of his contemporaries, though few can specifically be identified. In the left foreground we see a group of men fishing through two cut holes in the ice. To the right is a cluster of skaters and horse drawn sledge carrying well-dressed groups speeding along the ice. These sledges often served as a form of public transport, and indeed a traveler seemingly chasing after a departing vessel in the central background can be seen following behind the covered sledge. Most of us will be entirely familiar – and sympathize – with their predicament. A boy in yellow in the immediate foreground and a woman behind him are shown mid-fall, the woman seeming quite upset as her male companion comforts her. A large sledge powered by two billowing sails carries a group of no less than ten people as they carve through the ice. What appears to be a small cannon fires from portside, narrowly missing two innocent bystanders who appear quite shaken from the noise.

1. L. J. Bol, Adriaen Pietersz. Van de Venne. Painter and Draughtsman, Doornspijk 1989, p. 14, reproduced fig. 4.

2. Panel, 75 by 114.5 cm., signed and dated 1620. £1,150,000.