Jan van Goyen, Iceskating near a village. C. 1625

English, Nederlands

English

Iceskating near a village, c. 1625 painted by Jan van Goyen (Leiden, 1596 - 1656, Den Haag)

This small winter scene is an early example of the new tendency in Dutch art around 1610-1630 favouring a more true-to-life rendering of the landscape. The sweeping hilly landscapes of the Southern Netherlandish painting tradition made way for simple Dutch landscapes seen from a lower vantage point.Haarlem was home to this development with artists such as Esaias van de Velde, who joined the local Guild of St Luke in 1612, but moved to The Hague around 1618. The central motif in this painting is the frozen expanse ofwater, which leads the eye via the skaters into the distance.Awooden bridge spanning the water and lending intimacy to the scene separates the background from foreground. The left is bounded by a house and two tall bare trees and at the right an open section of land is closed off by a village with a large church further on.There is no snow, only white dots of frost causing the landscape, the trees and the roofs to glisten. The landscape is populated by numerous figures in a variety of clothing, skating or playing ‘kolf’ on the ice, or simply walking along the water’s edge. The painting bears the signature VG and therefore was long attributed to Jan van Goyen. In recent years, however, it has become clear that Esaias van de Velde, with whom Van Goyen completed his training in Haarlem around 1617, must have painted it.1Van Goyen’s early winter landscapes are very close to those by Esaias van de Velde from the same period.Paintings by Van de Velde were often later provided with the signature of the far better-known Jan van Goyen.2 The signature on our painting is also false.Keyes counts this painting to four winter landscapes from around 1620, the two smallest of which – the Haarlem one and a tondo in Leiden – he contends were incorrectly given to Jan van Goyen.3The primary arguments for an attribution to Van de Velde are the trees, which, according to him, are more caricatural in Van Goyen’s work, and the sky, which Van Goyen painted with greater subtlety and a less strict division between clouds and blue sky. The dicisive argument however was forwarded by Gifford, who discovered that the way in which the datails in the background were painted pointed to Esaias van de Velde.The datails were introduced only after the paint of the sky had dried, while Jan van Goyen always painted the sky and the background in a single session ‘wet in wet’.4

Oil on panel. 28,5 x 37,5 cm / 11.2" x 14.7". With frame 46 x 54.3 cm. Signed on the embankment above the man with the sleigh: VG (virtually illegible)

Provenance

• Art dealer J. Goudstikker,Amsterdam;
• snk,The Hague (no. 118);
• on loan from the icn since 1948

Literature
• Dobrzycka 1966,no. 247 (as Jan van Goyen);
• Beck 1972-91, vol. 1, p. 56 note 1c; vol. 2, no. 247 (Esaias van de Velde?); Amsterdam/Zwolle 1982,p. 51 (Esaias van de Velde);
• Keyes 1984,pp. 51, 74, 139-140,no. 76, fig. 199 (Esaias van de Velde); Tokyo/Kyoto 1990,no. 46 (Esaias van de Velde); cat.The Hague, rbk1992,no. 837 (Jan van Goyen); Leiden 1993,pp. 12, 13 (Esaias van de Velde);
• Gifford 1997,pp. 170-174, figs. 109-112 (Esaias van de Velde)

Exhibited
• Haarlem 1948 (1),pp. 14, 34,no. 6;
• Caracas 1983,no. 13 (Jan van Goyen);
• ’s-Hertogenbosch 1984,no. 13 (Jan van Goyen);

• Tokyo/Kasama/Kumamoto/Leiden 1992-93, no. 24 (Esaias van de Velde);
• Niigata/Toyohashi/Sakura 2003/04,no. 13 (Jan van Goyen)

Restored

• 2003, by H. van Putten

Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem (os 75-317 / 508b / NK2583) (loan from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands)

Source: Do Smit

Nederlands

IJsvermaak bij een dorp. Jan van Goyen (Leiden, 1596 - 1656, Den Haag)

Olieverf op paneel. 28,5 x 37,5 cm / 11.2" x 14.7". Met lijst 46 x 54,3 cm. Gesigneerd op de oever boven de man met de slee: VG (bijna niet leesbaar)

Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem (os 75-317 / 508b / NK2583). Bruikleen van de Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed

Bron: Do Smit