Lot Essay
The Master of the Winter Landscapes was formerly identified with Gysbrecht Leytens, however Carel Liefrinck's name was convincingly proposed by M.L. Wurfbain (in the exhibition catalogue Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626, Leiden, 1976, pp. 90, 91, 96) on the basis of a rereading of the monogram on a painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (no. 9199). That painting, and a painting in the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut (Wadsworth Atheneum Paintings: The Netherlands and German-speaking Countries, Fifteenth-Nineteenth Centuries, Hartford, 1978, p. 159, no. 84) exemplify Liefrinck's style and subject matter and compare closely to the present picture.
see front cover illustration for detail
see front cover illustration for detail