A winter landscape with a tower, kolf players on a frozen river in the foreground

Datable to 1614, or slightly before, this wonderfully atmospheric winter landscape is one of Esaias van de Velde's earliest known drawings. The date can be ascertained because Claes Jansz. Visscher (1587-1652) published an etched copy of the drawing, which was included in a series for which the frontispiece was dated 1614 (G. Keyes, op. cit., p. 342, no. A.54). Moreover, the etching which Esaias himself executed after this drawing is stylistically related to another autograph etching dated 1614 (Keyes, p. 334, no. E.33, pl. 29). It shows a typically lively scene on a frozen river: the small figures in the right foreground are engaged in a game of kolf. This developed in the late medieval period, as one of a number of games across Europe which involved using a club to knock a ball towards a target, and by the mid-15th Century it was popular enough for town councils to enact edicts restricting where it could be played. With the cold winters, when lakes and canals froze, kolf games often spread onto the ice and players appear in many Golden Age winter landscapes. By the late 17th Century, however, it was increasingly played inside on dedicated courts.