Skating on the Frozen Amstel River

1611

Adam van Breen

Artist, Dutch, c. 1585 - 1640

We look slightly down onto a scene showing light-skinned men, women, and children ice skating on a frozen river in this horizontal landscape painting. We get the impression of hundreds of people gathered on the ice creating a crowd that extends into the hazy distance. The couple dozen closest to us are the most defined. A few clusters of people and individuals in particular draw our attention. For example, a group of three men wearing dark cloaks and hats stand in conversation on our right. Two boys nearby hold sticks and play a game similar to hockey. A small child holds two smaller sticks, perhaps to help balance. A man in the front center wears puffy scarlet-red pants with white stockings, a red jacket, and a tall brown hat with a cloud of scarlet feathers. He stands next to a woman wearing a black hooded cloak over a black skirt and raspberry-pink bodice. She tucks her hands into a cylindrical muffler held at her waist. Another elegantly dressed man in golden yellows and black and a woman in mauve pink and butter yellow stand nearby. Some of people throughout the scene wear white frilly collars and others are more simply dressed in shades of brown, gray, and black. To our right, a faded rose-red windmill stands at the river’s edge, and to our left a large house with steeply pitched and stepped roofs is enclosed within a solid fence painted with pink diamonds against black and white. Smoke rises from one chimney, and other houses and a church line the riverbank into the distance. A wooden bridge near a grove of bare trees connects spit of land near us in the lower left corner with the village beyond. Brilliant azure-blue sky is visible through breaks in the steel-gray clouds above.

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In this winter landscape, aristocrats, burghers, countrymen, and orphans take to the ice of the frozen Amstel River. From a young boy propelling himself with sticks on a prikslee (small push-sled) to the group of three stately men with no skates conversing by the riverbank, each of Van Breen's figures colorfully brings to life the possible actions and interactions of a winter's day on the ice. On the right, a man and woman glide hand-in-hand with the wide stride typical of Dutch 17th-century skating. The man's green jerkin and gold breeches tied at the knees with ribbon and the woman's black vlieger, a long garment worn over the bodice and skirt, reflect the height of early 17th-century fashion. As they skate, a young boy from the Amsterdam Burgerweeshuis (city orphanage), recognizable by his red and black shirt, approaches them clasping a kolf stick. Further back, men and women leisurely glide together, and a pair of boys race alongside a painted, pink mill.

Unlike many winter scenes that represent imaginary locales, this evocative landscape depicts an identifiable location on the Amstel River just south of Amsterdam. The profiles of three of the city's churches are visible in the distance: the large, wide building at the left is the Nieuwe Kerk; the distant church to its right with a tall steeple is the Oude Kerk; while the third church nearest the Amstel is the Zuiderkerk. Remarkably, the painting also depicts a large house surrounded by a painted wooden fence that can be seen on a contemporary map of the area.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 50-B


Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Foullon de Doué family, Château d'Ancise, Douy, France;[1] probably by inheritance to the d'Estampes family, Château d'Ancise;[2] (sale, at the Château de Cheverny by Philippe Rouillac, 7 June 2009, no. 40); (John Mitchell Fine Paintings, London); purchased 12 March 2010 by NGA.
[1] This information was provided by William Mitchell, e-mail to Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., 22 February 2010, in NGA curatorial files. Douy is a small village in the Eure et Loir province of France, southwest of Paris between Orleans and Le Mans.
[2] The d'Estampes family is given as the consignor in the 2009 sale catalogue. Preliminary research into the connections between the Foullon de Doué and d'Estampes families is documented in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2018

  • Water, Wind, and Waves: Marine Paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2018, unnumbered brochure.

2021

  • Clouds, Ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2021, no. 9, repro.

Bibliography

2010

  • Landsman, Rozemarijn. "Adam van Breen, Skating on the Frozen Amsetel River." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 43 (Fall 2010): 32, repro.

  • Mitchell, William J.. "Adam van Breen (ca. 1585-1640)." Gallery Notes [John Mitchell Fine Paintings], Special Edition (February 2010): 13-16, repro. 15, as Winter Landscape with Skaters.

  • Mitchell, William J. "Foreword." Gallery Notes [John Mitchell Fine Paintings] (June 2010): repro., as Winter Landscape.

2011

  • Landsman, Rozemarijn. "Schilderachtig Borssenburg. Schaatsen op de Amstel door Adam van Breen." Amstelodamum 98-1 (January-March 2011): 18-30, fig. 1, figs. 3, 4, 8 (details).

Inscriptions

on gable of manor house: 16011

Wikidata ID

Q20176919


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