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拍品專文
Born in Amsterdam in 1587, Esaias van de Velde moved to Haarlem as a young man in 1609 and rapidly became one of the city’s leading landscape painters. In 1618, he had settled in The Hague, where he likely worked for Maurits, Prince of Orange. Though painted a decade after the artist arrived in The Hague, the idiosyncratic spindly trees that appear in this painting nevertheless suggest the continued influence of Haarlem landscapes on van de Velde’s work, notably a series of etchings entitled Verschey den Lantschapjes (Various Landscapes) that Willem Buytewech executed earlier in the decade (fig. 1).
Winter scenes were a particularly popular theme for Dutch painters of the seventeenth century and found their roots in the earlier winter landscapes of Flemish artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Such paintings allowed artists like van de Velde, Jan van Goyen and Hendrick Avercamp to indulge themselves in the depiction of a broad spectrum of society engaged in leisure activities. Van de Velde’s acute observation is evident here in the myriad of figures who skate, stride and slide across the flat, frigid landscape. Most notable are the pair of figures in the foreground who engage in a game of kolf, a predecessor of the modern game of golf. Kolf originated in the Middle Ages and involved the use of a club to knock a ball towards a target. The sport grew so popular in the urbanised Dutch environment and its players so rowdy from too much drink that the resulting damage to personal property induced a number of city councils to pass laws restricting its play to the countryside.
Winter scenes were a particularly popular theme for Dutch painters of the seventeenth century and found their roots in the earlier winter landscapes of Flemish artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Such paintings allowed artists like van de Velde, Jan van Goyen and Hendrick Avercamp to indulge themselves in the depiction of a broad spectrum of society engaged in leisure activities. Van de Velde’s acute observation is evident here in the myriad of figures who skate, stride and slide across the flat, frigid landscape. Most notable are the pair of figures in the foreground who engage in a game of kolf, a predecessor of the modern game of golf. Kolf originated in the Middle Ages and involved the use of a club to knock a ball towards a target. The sport grew so popular in the urbanised Dutch environment and its players so rowdy from too much drink that the resulting damage to personal property induced a number of city councils to pass laws restricting its play to the countryside.