Lot Essay
Avercamp was born in Amsterdam, but grew up in the smaller provincial city of Kampen, returned to Amsterdam for his studies under Pieter Isaacksz. (1569-1625), and came back to live and work in Kampen before 1614, where he died in 1634. His earliest dated work of 1608 is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. A.1718), his latest dated work is from 1632.
Avercamp was the first Dutch artist to develop the tradition of ice scenes with fashionable and low-life amusements, based on the art of Flemish artists such as Pieter Brueghel, Hans Bol and Jan Brueghel, whose work he must have known. His work was the starting point of a much depicted subject, which remains popular in Holland to this day.
To judge by the drawings and watercolours that survive, Avercamp seems to have built up a large repertory of studies from which he could use single figures in the various compositions of his pictures and drawings which, although full of lively and amusing details, never become cluttered and unfocused.
In the present drawing the horsedrawn ice sledge with the figures riding it at the right recurs in Avercamp's ice scene in watercolour, dated 1630, in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (C.J. Welcker/D.B. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Hendrick Avercamp 1585-1634, Zwolle, 1933/Doornspijk, 1979, T.6, pl. XXIV). Comparable watercolours in subject, style, technique and size are in the Fondation Custodia, Institut Néerlandais, Paris (Welcker/Hensbroek-van der Poel, op.cit., T.67/T.131.15), and in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Although Avercamp's chronology is difficult to determine, all three watercolours would seem to be contemporary in date and were no doubt intended as individual works of art created for collectors.
Avercamp's ice scenes capture beautifully the cold wintery atmosphere by creating a hazy, filtered sunlight, that dissolves the view in the distance, while in the foreground all the figures are clearly reflected in the ice.
The costumes worn would generally seem to date from circa 1620, but in a provincial town such as Kampen fashion may well have changed more slowly than in the larger cities of Holland. The variety of dress shown in the present wintertje indicate the cross section of classes enjoying the ice: noblemen, burghers and simple villagers, each occupied with a fitting activity ranging from playing kolf, sleighing, skating to eel fishing. In drawings such as this one, Avercamp's acute and witty portrayal of the habits and costume of Dutch 17th Century life afford an unmatched insight to the period
Avercamp was the first Dutch artist to develop the tradition of ice scenes with fashionable and low-life amusements, based on the art of Flemish artists such as Pieter Brueghel, Hans Bol and Jan Brueghel, whose work he must have known. His work was the starting point of a much depicted subject, which remains popular in Holland to this day.
To judge by the drawings and watercolours that survive, Avercamp seems to have built up a large repertory of studies from which he could use single figures in the various compositions of his pictures and drawings which, although full of lively and amusing details, never become cluttered and unfocused.
In the present drawing the horsedrawn ice sledge with the figures riding it at the right recurs in Avercamp's ice scene in watercolour, dated 1630, in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (C.J. Welcker/D.B. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Hendrick Avercamp 1585-1634, Zwolle, 1933/Doornspijk, 1979, T.6, pl. XXIV). Comparable watercolours in subject, style, technique and size are in the Fondation Custodia, Institut Néerlandais, Paris (Welcker/Hensbroek-van der Poel, op.cit., T.67/T.131.15), and in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Although Avercamp's chronology is difficult to determine, all three watercolours would seem to be contemporary in date and were no doubt intended as individual works of art created for collectors.
Avercamp's ice scenes capture beautifully the cold wintery atmosphere by creating a hazy, filtered sunlight, that dissolves the view in the distance, while in the foreground all the figures are clearly reflected in the ice.
The costumes worn would generally seem to date from circa 1620, but in a provincial town such as Kampen fashion may well have changed more slowly than in the larger cities of Holland. The variety of dress shown in the present wintertje indicate the cross section of classes enjoying the ice: noblemen, burghers and simple villagers, each occupied with a fitting activity ranging from playing kolf, sleighing, skating to eel fishing. In drawings such as this one, Avercamp's acute and witty portrayal of the habits and costume of Dutch 17th Century life afford an unmatched insight to the period