A frozen winter landscape with figures digging holes in the ice

Despite the yellowed appearance, this is a beautiful example of Avercamp’s enduringly admired winterscapes. Apparently signed with the artist’s distinctive initials in the way of his more finished watercolors, it appears to be sketched from life, and are close to several of the drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (inv. RCIN 906466, RCIN 906472, RCIN 906501; see C. White and C. Crawley, The Dutch and Flemish Drawings of the Fifteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge, Melbourne and New York, 1994, no. 241, 246, 275, ill.). The men wielding axes are making holes in the ice, probably for fishing, as seen in another sheet at Windsor (inv. RCIN 906475; see ibid., no. 249, ill.).