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Lot Essay
Beginning in the 1630s, Aert van der Neer began to include winter scenes in his repertoire, no doubt in response to the growing popularity of the theme and to compete with the increasing number of artists who treated it. The artist’s views of skaters on frozen waterways, of which the present panel is a lovely example, are clearly Flemish in origin, reminiscent of Hendrick Avercamp's rendering of the same subject, painted some fifty years earlier, and themselves in the tradition of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Van der Neer lowers his horizon-line, however, allowing for considerably more sky, and opens up his compositions far more than his earlier counterparts, thus making them more convincingly naturalistic. His works from the early to mid-1640s suggest another source of inspiration, too: that of the Haarlem 'tonal' phase of landscape painting, developed in the 1620s and 1630s by the likes of Esiais van de Velde, Pieter Molijn, Salomon van Ruysdael and Jan van Goyen. In his typical fashion, van der Neer here uses a number of Flemish devices, such as the closing off of his composition with repoussoir elements of the two trees at left and the lines of buildings at right, and the placement of isolated figures on the frozen path.
Perhaps van der Neer's greatest contribution to Dutch landscape painting, and an area in which some say he is unsurpassed, is his sensitivity to colored light and the rich nuances of atmosphere. This is complimented by his ability to represent light, either with heavy cloud formations, or simply using a subdued palette of pinks and browns, as in the present painting, that imbues his scene with a glow that suggests a fleeting moment of warmth in a long winter season. Van der Neer captures the nature of northern light in winter by using incredibly subtle tonal changes in a way that few other Dutch artists managed to reproduce with equal success, with the exceptions of Rembrandt (his only known winter landscape of 1646, now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel), Jacob van Ruisdael, and Jan van der Cappelle.
The present panel must have been particularly admired both at the time of its creation and over the centuries that followed. As a result, multiple versions and later copies have survived, whose existence have led to much confusion regarding their individual identities and provenances. There appear to be at least three surviving examples of this composition by Aert van der Neer and his followers. Our panel is generally identified as the one published by Fredo Bachmann in his seminal catalogue raisonné (F. Bachmann, loc. cit.; see also W. Schulz, loc. cit.). Bachmann records it as being signed in monogram and dated 1641. As visual inspection was unable to confirm the presence of these inscriptions, one must suppose that Bachmann was either working from erroneous cataloguing, or that the signature and date were subsequently removed in the course of a cleaning or of a restoration. Very minor differences between the present painting and the black and white photograph in Bachmann’s catalogue, however, must be considered. Certain features are visible in the photograph, but not in our painting, including a structure with a triangular roof to the right of the gate at center and the buildings in the far distance on the horizon of the frozen canal to the right of the large tree. A painting sold at Knight, Frank & Rutley, London, 14 April 1964, lot 593, may be the same as the one cited by Bachmann. That same painting possibly sold at Christie’s, London, on 21 June 1968, lot 98. A second (or third) panel, measuring 51 x 93 cm., was last recorded as in a private collection in Kiel (W. Schulz, op. cit., no. 75, as signed and dated (lower left) and `probably authentic’). Most recently, a final panel measuring 51 x 91 cm., also bearing a signature and dated (lower left) was sold at Maigret, Paris, 21 June 2023, lot 122, as 18th-century in the style of Aert van der Neer. Writing in 2002, Wolfgang Schulz identified the present panel as the one cited by Bachmann, suggesting that it was an 18th-century copy after the panel in Kiel, and connecting its provenance with that of the one sold at Knight, Frank & Rutley. Based on all of the available evidence, our painting is almost certainly the work exhibited by Leonard Koetser in 1964.
Turning to the present panel itself, its quality is readily apparent. Certain elements, such as the large tree at right which is stylistically reminiscent of Roelandt Savery (1576-1639), suggest that this might be an early work. Typical of van der Neer is his preference for lively staffage in his paintings. The group of the man and girl carrying sticks with their dog in the foreground, the solitary woman at left, and the old man with a walking stick by the gate find counterparts in several of van der Neer’s paintings, and might correspond to drawings kept in the artist’s workshop. Participants in the game of kolf are also depicted on the frozen canal. This game was played by two or four people and with two or four balls, and the aim was to cover a fixed distance or to reach a fixed goal, a post for instance, with as few strokes as possible. Because a smooth surface was necessary, kolf was played in Holland only in winter, on the ice, but this is the origin of the modern game of golf.
Perhaps van der Neer's greatest contribution to Dutch landscape painting, and an area in which some say he is unsurpassed, is his sensitivity to colored light and the rich nuances of atmosphere. This is complimented by his ability to represent light, either with heavy cloud formations, or simply using a subdued palette of pinks and browns, as in the present painting, that imbues his scene with a glow that suggests a fleeting moment of warmth in a long winter season. Van der Neer captures the nature of northern light in winter by using incredibly subtle tonal changes in a way that few other Dutch artists managed to reproduce with equal success, with the exceptions of Rembrandt (his only known winter landscape of 1646, now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel), Jacob van Ruisdael, and Jan van der Cappelle.
The present panel must have been particularly admired both at the time of its creation and over the centuries that followed. As a result, multiple versions and later copies have survived, whose existence have led to much confusion regarding their individual identities and provenances. There appear to be at least three surviving examples of this composition by Aert van der Neer and his followers. Our panel is generally identified as the one published by Fredo Bachmann in his seminal catalogue raisonné (F. Bachmann, loc. cit.; see also W. Schulz, loc. cit.). Bachmann records it as being signed in monogram and dated 1641. As visual inspection was unable to confirm the presence of these inscriptions, one must suppose that Bachmann was either working from erroneous cataloguing, or that the signature and date were subsequently removed in the course of a cleaning or of a restoration. Very minor differences between the present painting and the black and white photograph in Bachmann’s catalogue, however, must be considered. Certain features are visible in the photograph, but not in our painting, including a structure with a triangular roof to the right of the gate at center and the buildings in the far distance on the horizon of the frozen canal to the right of the large tree. A painting sold at Knight, Frank & Rutley, London, 14 April 1964, lot 593, may be the same as the one cited by Bachmann. That same painting possibly sold at Christie’s, London, on 21 June 1968, lot 98. A second (or third) panel, measuring 51 x 93 cm., was last recorded as in a private collection in Kiel (W. Schulz, op. cit., no. 75, as signed and dated (lower left) and `probably authentic’). Most recently, a final panel measuring 51 x 91 cm., also bearing a signature and dated (lower left) was sold at Maigret, Paris, 21 June 2023, lot 122, as 18th-century in the style of Aert van der Neer. Writing in 2002, Wolfgang Schulz identified the present panel as the one cited by Bachmann, suggesting that it was an 18th-century copy after the panel in Kiel, and connecting its provenance with that of the one sold at Knight, Frank & Rutley. Based on all of the available evidence, our painting is almost certainly the work exhibited by Leonard Koetser in 1964.
Turning to the present panel itself, its quality is readily apparent. Certain elements, such as the large tree at right which is stylistically reminiscent of Roelandt Savery (1576-1639), suggest that this might be an early work. Typical of van der Neer is his preference for lively staffage in his paintings. The group of the man and girl carrying sticks with their dog in the foreground, the solitary woman at left, and the old man with a walking stick by the gate find counterparts in several of van der Neer’s paintings, and might correspond to drawings kept in the artist’s workshop. Participants in the game of kolf are also depicted on the frozen canal. This game was played by two or four people and with two or four balls, and the aim was to cover a fixed distance or to reach a fixed goal, a post for instance, with as few strokes as possible. Because a smooth surface was necessary, kolf was played in Holland only in winter, on the ice, but this is the origin of the modern game of golf.