Hendrick Avercamp

Enjoying the Ice

c. 1615 - c. 1620

Inscriptions

  • monogram, in ligated monogram, at bottom right:H.A.

Technical notes

The support is a single horizontally grained oak panel bevelled at the top, left and right. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1592. The panel could have been ready for use by 1603, but a date in or after 1609 is more likely. The ground is an off-white colour. The paint layer is rather thin and transparent. Many of the small figures were painted on top of the landscape. There are numerous small pentimenti. The figures were painted on top of bushes and other parts of the landscape, and some of them were moved, while the sky partly overlaps the branches of the trees.

Scientific examination and reports

  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 25 februari 2002
  • technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 24 november 2004

Condition

Fair. The paint layer is abraded along the grain of the wood in the sky and in the figures in the lower half. There are discoloured retouchings along the horizontal grain.

Conservation

  • M. Zeldenrust, 1978: discoloured varnish and the overpainting of the ice removed; retouched and revarnished

Provenance

...; a French collection, 18th/19th century;1Handwritten labels on the reverse of the panel....; the dealer Nicolaas Beets, Amsterdam, 1930;2Label on the reverse of the panel; advertisement in Pantheon, V (1930) no. 3....; donated to the museum by Sir Henri W.A. Deterding (1866-1939), London, 1936

ObjectNumber: SK-A-3247

Credit line: Gift of H.W.A. Deterding, London

The artist

Biography

Hendrick Avercamp (Amsterdam 1585 - Kampen 1634)

The eldest son of the apothecary Barent Hendricksz Avercamp and Beatrix Peters Vekemans, Hendrick Avercamp was baptized in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam on 25 January 1585. In 1586 his father became the town apothecary of Kampen, and the family moved there. As Hendrick was deaf and dumb from birth, he was commonly known as ‘de Stom’ or ‘de Stomme’ (‘the mute’). Since one of the buyers at the studio sale of Pieter Isaacsz in Amsterdam in 1607 is mentioned as ‘de stom tot Pieter Isacqs’ (‘the mute at Pieter Isaacsz’s’), it is thought that Avercamp was sent to Amsterdam to live and study with the history and portrait painter Pieter Isaacsz (1569-1625), who returned to his native Denmark in that year. By January 1613, but probably earlier, Avercamp must have returned to Kampen, where he remained for the rest of his life. Shortly before his mother died, she expressed in her will her concern about her unmarried eldest son Hendrick, who she called ‘stom en miserabel’ (‘mute and miserable’). Hendrick was buried on 15 May 1634 in the Bovenkerk (or Sint-Nicolaaskerk) in Kampen.

Avercamp mainly painted winter scenes, called ‘wintertjes’ in the 17th century. His early paintings, dated 1608 and 1609, show the influence of Flemish landscape painters like Hans Bol, Gillis van Coninxloo and David Vinckboons, and a strong interest in narrative details in the tradition of Pieter Brueghel. The Flemish influence becomes less noticeable in his later works, with the horizon lines being lower and the perspective more natural. Although best known for his winter landscape paintings, he also drew several and painted a few summer and river landscapes. Hendrick Avercamp was a prolific draughtsman, mostly in pen, chalk and watercolour, creating figure studies for his paintings and fully worked-out drawings as detailed as his paintings. The latter drawings were probably intended for sale. Paintings by artists such as Arent Arentsz (1585/86-1631), Adam van Breen (c. 1585-after 1642), Antonie Verstralen (c. 1594-1641) and Hendrick’s nephew Barent Avercamp (1612/13-79) strongly resemble his work, but it is unclear whether those artists were taught by him or simply imitated his work.

Jan Piet Filedt Kok, 2007

References
Benezit in Thieme/Becker II, 1908, pp. 276-77; Welcker 1933, pp. 33-71; Blankert in Amsterdam-Zwolle 1982, pp. 15-36; Hensbroek in Saur V, 1992, pp. 728-29; Hensbroek in Turner 1996, II, pp. 854-55

Entry

This small ice scene shows numerous figures on a frozen river with a small village and windmill on the left and the wall of a town with a castle in the right background. Van Luttervelt thought that it was Breda Castle,3Note RMA. while an 18th-century French label on the back identifies the places depicted as Dordrecht and Zwijndrecht. Blankert regarded the castle as a 19th-century addition,4Blankert in Amsterdam-Zwolle 1982, p. 28. but there is not the slightest physical evidence to support this.

The reddish blue colour of the cloudy sky suggests that evening is approaching. The palette becomes almost monochrome at the horizon and in the background sky, suggesting an aerial perspective. This small panel, which is far more modest in size than the other two Avercamps in the Rijksmuseum, represents a later stage in the artist’s development. The lower horizon, the absence of large trees that act like stage flats, and the naturalistic way in which the eye is led into the painting, all point to a late date of execution. Most authors agreed on a date after 1620.5See Blankert in Amsterdam-Zwolle 1982, p. 28. However, there is no clear evidence that that is the case, especially when one compares this work with the only later ice scene, dated 1620, in a private collection.6Panel, 33 x 52 cm; Welcker 1979, p. 203, nos. S 5, S 6; illustrated in Amsterdam-Zwolle 1982, p. 102, no. 10. The type and dress of the figures, the old man with an axe and a pitchfork being the most representative, do not differ substantially from what one sees in the period 1615-20. It is only the more tonal nature of the landscape that might suggest a later date.

Jan Piet Filedt Kok, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

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. 12.

Literature

Welcker 1979, p. 204, no. 10.1

Collection catalogues

1960, p. 24, no. 391 A 1; 1976, p. 91, no. A 3247; 2007, no. 12

Citation

J.P. Filedt Kok, 2007, 'Hendrick Avercamp, Enjoying the Ice, c. 1615 - c. 1620', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5854

(accessed 13 May 2025 08:46:00).

Footnotes

  • 1Handwritten labels on the reverse of the panel.
  • 2Label on the reverse of the panel; advertisement in Pantheon, V (1930) no. 3.
  • 3Note RMA.
  • 4Blankert in Amsterdam-Zwolle 1982, p. 28.
  • 5See Blankert in Amsterdam-Zwolle 1982, p. 28.
  • 6Panel, 33 x 52 cm; Welcker 1979, p. 203, nos. S 5, S 6; illustrated in Amsterdam-Zwolle 1982, p. 102, no. 10.