The original support (54.6 x 111.6 cm) was probably an oak panel consisting of two horizontally grained planks planed down to a few millimetres and transferred to a modern multiplex support. There is a beige ground, a grey under painting for the ice and a blue one for the sky. There is an underdrawing, possibly in black chalk. The painting was executed from the back to the front, without reserves.

Fair. The painting was transferred to a modern panel and is very flat. There is a great deal of abrasion in the sky, and there are discoloured retouchings in the sky, the ice and along the former joins. The yellowed varnish is rather matte and scratched.

...; donated to the museum by R.H.A. Verspyck, Chateauneuf, and Mrs I.A. Uitenhage de Mist-Verspyck, Aerdenhout, from the bequest of Mrs E.F. Verspyck-Laan, Aerdenhout, 1999

Object number: SK-A-4951

Credit line: E.F. Verspyck-Laan Bequest, Aerdenhout

This painting, which has never before been described or reproduced in the literature, is a typical but not very well preserved winter landscape by Adam van Breen, as is confirmed by the monogram ‘AB’ on the front of the icebound boat in the foreground. The panel, which has unfortunately been transferred to a modern support, is larger than most of Van Breen’s winter landscapes, but the composition and the figures recall those of his Ice Scene with Windmill and Icebound Boat in a private collection, which is dated 1611,¹¹Panel, 46 x 68 cm; illustrated in Van Gelder/Van Gelder-Schrijver 1932, p. 113, fig. 1 (with Dr Nicolaas Beets, Amsterdam), and Bol 1982, p. 148 (with Douwes, Amsterdam). and of his ice scene in Paris.²²Musée du Louvre, panel, 35 x 65 cm; illustrated in coll. cat. Paris 1979, p. 19. Another version was auctioned in 1918 with the G. Strumpf Collection, for which there is a drawing in red chalk, possibly a preliminary study in Braunschweig; see Van Gelder/Van Gelder-Schrijver 1932, p. 112, fig. 4. The rather broad and loose execution of the figures, which is quite characteristic of Van Breen, is decidedly inferior to the unerring, delicate and transparent handling of paint in the works by Hendrick Avercamp that inspired him. This painting should very probably be dated prior to Van Breen’s departure for Kristiania in 1624.

Jan Piet Filedt Kok, 2007

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This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 33.

2007, no. 33

J.P. Filedt Kok, 2007, 'Adam van Breen, Winter Landscape with Skaters, c. 1615 - c. 1620', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20065884