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Lot Essay
This painting depicts one of Adam van Breen’s most admired compositions. The Rijksmuseum has a slightly larger version of this painting, with minor differences in staffage, that is signed with Adam van Breen's monogram (inv. no. SK-A-4951). Since the late Middle Ages, skating was a popular pastime in the Netherlands, but around the middle of the sixteenth century—a period of extremely cold winters and relatively cool summers—such winter activities played a more prominent role in daily life.
Van Breen may have trained in Amsterdam with David Vinckboons and he must also have encountered paintings by Hendrick Avercamp, who specialized in winter landscapes. In The Hague, van Breen was likely influenced by Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne, to whom this painting was previously attributed, and whose figural types find strong echoes here. Unlike Avercamp’s winter scenes, which generally incorporate figures from a range of social strata, the elegant and fashionably dressed figures in this painting appear to hail exclusively from the nobility and wealthy bourgeoisie, perhaps those surrounding the court in The Hague. Indeed, the monogrammed version in the Rijksmuseum is compositionally and stylistically comparable to a painting dated 1611 (formerly art market, Amsterdam), the year van Breen relocated from Amsterdam to The Hague.
An inferior, somewhat elongated version of this composition given to a follower of van Breen was offered Sotheby’s, London, 8 July 1999, lot 107.
Van Breen may have trained in Amsterdam with David Vinckboons and he must also have encountered paintings by Hendrick Avercamp, who specialized in winter landscapes. In The Hague, van Breen was likely influenced by Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne, to whom this painting was previously attributed, and whose figural types find strong echoes here. Unlike Avercamp’s winter scenes, which generally incorporate figures from a range of social strata, the elegant and fashionably dressed figures in this painting appear to hail exclusively from the nobility and wealthy bourgeoisie, perhaps those surrounding the court in The Hague. Indeed, the monogrammed version in the Rijksmuseum is compositionally and stylistically comparable to a painting dated 1611 (formerly art market, Amsterdam), the year van Breen relocated from Amsterdam to The Hague.
An inferior, somewhat elongated version of this composition given to a follower of van Breen was offered Sotheby’s, London, 8 July 1999, lot 107.