8 Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) Frozen river with horse-drawn sleds on a bank, cottages beyond oil on panel, 28,5x43 cm
Several men push along a sledge carrying people, which is being pulled by a horse up a gentle slope, figures skate on the frozen water, and a few houses on the riverbank with smoke rising from its chimneys. This evocative winter landscape captures the quiet rhythm of Dutch winter life. Painted with Van Goyen’s characteristic tonal restraint, the scene unfolds beneath a vast sky of soft browns and greys, where light breaks faintly through the clouds and reflects off the icy surface. The painting unites the everyday and the atmospheric - a humble yet poetic evocation of a season, a place, and a way of life. Jan van Goyen was a remarkably versatile artist within the landscape genre of seventeenth century art. His oeuvre encompasses an impressive range of subjects - from river and village views to marines, dunes, forests, and cityscapes, rendered in both summer and winter light. He proved to be one of the most influential figures of his time, and played a central role in the development of the tonal landscape, in which naturalism, atmosphere, and unity of tone replaced the colourful artificiality of earlier traditions. Van Goyen studied with several masters, yet his apprenticeship in Haarlem in 1617 under Esaias van de Velde (1587–1630) proved most influential. There, he absorbed Van de Velde’s fresh and naturalistic approach to landscape painting, which he would later refine into a more restrained and distinctive style. Although his paintings did not command high prices during his lifetime, Van Goyen balanced his finances by producing prolifically - painting thinly and efficiently with a limited palette. His early works of the 1620s, strongly inspired by Van de Velde and still rich in colour and contrast, gradually gave way after 1627 to a more limited palette of muted harmonies in ochres, browns, and greens. This transition may have been driven in part by economic necessity, yet it resulted in one of the most recognisable visual idioms of the seventeenth century. Technically, Van Goyen was both methodical and inventive. He typically painted on thin oak panels, prepared with several layers of animal hide glue to seal the surface. Over this, he would spread a thin coating of tinted white lead to create a smooth ground, often coloured in a light brown or ochre tone. Upon this base, he sketched the composition rapidly, drawing from his many outdoor studies. Though Van Goyen worked from life, his finished paintings were seldom literal transcriptions of specific sites; rather, they were carefully composed syntheses of motifs observed during his travels across Holland, the Southern Netherlands, and the area around Cleves. The present composition likely reflects this approach - combining different scenes into a balanced and harmonious whole. After outlining the composition, Van Goyen would prepare a neutral selection of pigments on his palette, whose earthy tones reflected the very materials from which they were made. Applying these in thin, transparent layers, he achieved an extraordinary sense of atmosphere and spatial depth. In this painting, that technique yields a strikingly realistic yet poetic vision: the gentle gleam on the ice, the figures animated by quiet labour and leisure, and the enveloping winter air that binds them together. Van Goyen executed many winter landscapes throughout his career, around one hundred paintings of this theme are known today. ‘Winter Landscape with Figures on the Ice’ encapsulates Van Goyen’s mature style - restrained, balanced, and deeply attuned to the nuances of light and weather. In his hands, the landscape becomes not merely a subject, but a living presence: an enduring reflection of nature’s calm grandeur and the simple dignity of everyday life.
€35,000 - €45,000
Exhibited: -New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1969-1974 (on loan). -Amsterdam, Waterman Gallery, ‘Jan van Goyen 1596-1656: Conquest of Space’, 12 March-12 April 1981 (not in catalogue). Literature: -Nystad Antiquairs Lochem, ‘Vier generaties Nystad 1862-1962: jubileum-uitgave’, The Hague 1962, illustrated. -Hans-Ulrich Beck, ‘Jan van Goyen. Ein Oeuvreverzeichnis’, Voll. II, Amsterdam 1973, ill. p. 44, no. 83, as ‘signed with monogram VG and dated 1653 lower left’. Provenance: -Auction, Berlin, 9 March 1949, lot 123. -Munich Art Market, 1952. -With Dr Curt Benedict, Paris, 1952. -With Saam Nijstad (1922-2011), The Hague/Lochem, circa 1953. -Collection F.H. Fentener van Vlissingen, Vught/Worth Rheden. -Collection H. Lepow, New York; His auction, Christie’s, New York, 9 January 1981, lot 119. -With Leger Galleries, Londen, exhibited at Pictura Maastricht, May 1981, no. 1. -Auction, Sotheby’s, New York, 4 June 1987, lot 67. -Private collection, New York, 1987-2005. -Auction, Sotheby’s, New York, 27 January 2005, lot 172 (sold for $150.000). -With Dr A. Wieg Fine Art, Amsterdam, 2005, where acquired by the parents of the present owner.
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