Hendrick Avercamp and Assistant
(Amsterdam 1585–1663 Kampen)
A winter landscape with figures enjoying the ice,
monogrammed (on the tent): HVA (ligated),
oil on panel, 41.5 x 60 cm, framed
Provenance:
Collection of Henry Doetsch (1839–1894), London;
his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 25 June 1895, lot 443 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
Private collection, United Kingdom;
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 7 July 1976, lot 61 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
with Brod Gallery, London, 1977;
with René Schreuder, Aerdenhout, 1990;
with Galerie De Jonckheere, 1997;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 4 March 1997, lot 136 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
Private collection, Vienna
Literature:
W. von Seidlitz, H. Weizsäcker, G. Gronau, T. Thieme, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. XVIII, Berlin/Boston 1895, p. 315 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
C. J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp 1585–1634 bijgenaamd “De stomme van Campen” en Barent Avercamp, 1612–1679, “Schilders tot Campen”, Zwolle 1933, p. 228, no. S 366 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
C. J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp 1585–1634 bijgenaamd “De stomme van Campen” en Barent Avercamp, 1612–1679, “Schilders tot Campen”. Bewerking Oeuvre-catalogus door D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Doornspijk 1979, pp. 235, 237, nos. S 366, S 405.8 (as Hendrick Avercamp)
The present painting is listed in the RKD database under number 20403 (as Hendrick Avercamp and Assistant).
We are grateful to Ellis Dullaart for confirming the attribution on the basis of a photograph and for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.
The work offered here depicts a animated winter scene, typical of the work of Hendrick Avercamp, who successfully developed this genre. As is the case in the present painting, many of the artist’s compositions are painted from the vantage point of the bank of a frozen river or lake, set in the flat landscape in the northern part of the Low Countries. This point of view allowed the artist to achieve perspective through the optical technique of repoussoir, produced here by the placement of the bare tree, the barn, and haystack in the lower-left of the present work. Throughout the composition, numerous figures carefully walk on the slippery ice, which provides a new seasonal route to the other side of the water. Most of the figures seem to be enjoying this spectacular natural phenomenon. In addition, there are two horse-drawn sleighs in the background and the gentlemen in the foreground fully engaged in an early form of golf. Part of the entertainment of being on the ice is to be found in the row of tents along the waterfront; they offer warm food and beverages during a stroll, sleigh ride, or ice-skating tour, and are often present in Avercamp’s compositions. The artist’s signature, for which he used his ligated monogram, ‘HVA’, is found on the tent placed at the centre of the composition.
Although the artist did not date his paintings and scholars have difficulty establishing a chronology within his body of works, the author of the catalogue raisonné, Clara Welcker, places the present painting amongst Avercamp’s early works (see literature). This is consistent with the composition of the present picture, in which there is an equal division between the clouded grey sky and the frozen stretch of ice. This relatively high horizon is common in early Dutch landscape painting. Another, probably early, painting by Avercamp, entitled Winter Landscape, which was sold at Lempertz, Cologne on 12 May 2012 as lot 1215, bears similarities to the work under discussion. The Lempertz painting also depicts a diagonal row of tents and a comparable composition on the left, where a bare tree, a haystack, and a barn are situated.
It is generally thought that during the course of his career, Avercamp followed the general tendency in landscape painting, lowering the horizon and enlarging the figures in the foreground in his pictures. This development is clearly illustrated in his painting Enjoying the ice near a town, which is dated circa 1620 and today conserved in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. SK-C-1705). In this painting the horizon is significantly lower than in the present painting.
It should be mentioned that Clara Welcker notes in her catalogue raisonné from 1933, that the present painting bore the name ‘Isaack van Ostade’ in the lower left (see literature), though today there are no traces visible (see technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi). Despite this, Welcker confirmed the painting to be by Hendrick Avercamp. According to Ellis Dullaart of the RKD in The Hague, the use of repoussoir on the lower left as described above, along with the treatment of the boat, support the attribution to Avercamp and relate to his other early works. Although Dullaart considers the treatment of the figures and the stretch of ice as being less typical for the artist, she also notes a significant, clearly visible pentimento revealing the original presence of an elegant couple and a dog in the left part of the central tent. In addition, underdrawing can be seen through the paint layers near the boat on the left, which is confirmed by the technical analysis of Gianluca Poldi (see below). Concluding her observations, Dullaart considers the present painting to be a combined creation by Avercamp and a workshop assistant.
Born deaf, and probably unable to speak, Avercamp was nicknamed "de Stomme van Kampen" [the mute of Kampen]. Raised in this eastern city along the river IJssel, situated close to the shores of the former inner Southern Sea, the artist would have experienced the joys of winter, and especially the ice, from a young age. Returning to his birthplace Amsterdam around 1607, he was apprenticed to Pieter Isaacsz and possibly received training from the Antwerp landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo. The year 1608 was one of the coldest in the history of the Low Countries. The frozen rivers and seafronts were a source of inspiration for Avercamp, as they had been for artists such as Pieter Breughel I and others before him, who illustrated the winter landscape and the amusements on the ice in paintings, drawings and prints.
The present painting was once part of the collection of the German born Henry Doetsch (1839–1894) who made his fortune in Spain where he was one of the founders of the company Sundheim y Doetsch and was director of the Rio Tinto Company. As a collector of old master paintings, Doetsch is thought to have been in contact with the American art historian Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) and purchased works from renowned Dutch and Italian masters. After his years in Spain, Doetsch settled in London where he continued to expand his collection and opened his house and art gallery to interested parties. At the time of Henry Doetsch’s death his collection numbered 400 paintings and 600 miniatures. A large portion was sold at Christie’s London in June 1895, by which means a number of works from the collection found their way into the Royal Collection and other prestigious institutions.
Technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi:
The work consists of a thin oak panel, 6 mm thick, of which the panels are horizontally arranged. The reverse of the panel is partially cradled.
Over the white ground a drawing was made in black chalk. Despite an extremely detailed and accurate pictorial composition, the underdrawing consists of a few broken lines vaguely locating the objects and masses; as it is only the first drawing level. A second stage of drawing, extremely thin is only visible with very high resolution IR cameras. This second drawing outlines the figures, made with a fine-tipped pencil, perhaps still black chalk, if not a metal tip leaving a dark mark. The figures are in fact taken from the great repertoire of the painter, who often assembles compositions starting from similar elements, therefore the phase of designing the composition must have been particularly important to avoid imitating or copying earlier painted landscapes.
The first stage of drawing - so elementary - is interesting not in itself, but because it shows us the creative process of Avercamp, and possibly of his workshop: the design of the composition is drawn in a few lines that point out what will be painted, they are signs of a very personal language incomprehensible to us. In this drawing, a simple ‘X’ with a vertical rectangle designates the location of the windmill, which will then be painted further down; some crossed lines seem to indicate the location of buildings or tents; complex lines are used to point out the vegetation; while the zigzag lines seem to indicate the placement of the crowds or figures.
Over this kind of underdrawing the artist painted the ice and the sky, then he drew the figures and some of the other elements. The characters are very finely drawn with slight alterations, and finally completed with paint. The pigments used, in light of the non-invasive spectroscopic analyses carried out, include azurite for all the blue areas, often dirtied with other pigments to lower the tone; vermilion in reds; ochres and brown earths; finely ground black pigment; smalt blue in the sky at the top right, in the now brown area due to the complete discolouration of the pigment, as typically occurred in many works of that era for blue smalt used with drying oil. The use of red lake is very limited, mixed with azurite to obtain grey-purple hues.
Finally, IR reflectograms highlight some changes on a pictorial level: in the haystack on the left an alternative positioning of the roof is covered, and a small shed eliminated. But the most significant modification, which occurs when the painting is almost completed, is right at the centre of the work: Avercamp and his assistant covered three figures already painted by adding the tent, on which he applied, with red ochre, his monogram as if it were embroidered on the fabric. The monogram is perfectly coherent - as testified under microscope - with the rest of the painting.
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(Amsterdam 1585–1663 Kampen)
A winter landscape with figures enjoying the ice,
monogrammed (on the tent): HVA (ligated),
oil on panel, 41.5 x 60 cm, framed
Provenance:
Collection of Henry Doetsch (1839–1894), London;
his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 25 June 1895, lot 443 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
Private collection, United Kingdom;
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 7 July 1976, lot 61 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
with Brod Gallery, London, 1977;
with René Schreuder, Aerdenhout, 1990;
with Galerie De Jonckheere, 1997;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 4 March 1997, lot 136 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
Private collection, Vienna
Literature:
W. von Seidlitz, H. Weizsäcker, G. Gronau, T. Thieme, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. XVIII, Berlin/Boston 1895, p. 315 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
C. J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp 1585–1634 bijgenaamd “De stomme van Campen” en Barent Avercamp, 1612–1679, “Schilders tot Campen”, Zwolle 1933, p. 228, no. S 366 (as Hendrick Avercamp);
C. J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp 1585–1634 bijgenaamd “De stomme van Campen” en Barent Avercamp, 1612–1679, “Schilders tot Campen”. Bewerking Oeuvre-catalogus door D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Doornspijk 1979, pp. 235, 237, nos. S 366, S 405.8 (as Hendrick Avercamp)
The present painting is listed in the RKD database under number 20403 (as Hendrick Avercamp and Assistant).
We are grateful to Ellis Dullaart for confirming the attribution on the basis of a photograph and for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.
The work offered here depicts a animated winter scene, typical of the work of Hendrick Avercamp, who successfully developed this genre. As is the case in the present painting, many of the artist’s compositions are painted from the vantage point of the bank of a frozen river or lake, set in the flat landscape in the northern part of the Low Countries. This point of view allowed the artist to achieve perspective through the optical technique of repoussoir, produced here by the placement of the bare tree, the barn, and haystack in the lower-left of the present work. Throughout the composition, numerous figures carefully walk on the slippery ice, which provides a new seasonal route to the other side of the water. Most of the figures seem to be enjoying this spectacular natural phenomenon. In addition, there are two horse-drawn sleighs in the background and the gentlemen in the foreground fully engaged in an early form of golf. Part of the entertainment of being on the ice is to be found in the row of tents along the waterfront; they offer warm food and beverages during a stroll, sleigh ride, or ice-skating tour, and are often present in Avercamp’s compositions. The artist’s signature, for which he used his ligated monogram, ‘HVA’, is found on the tent placed at the centre of the composition.
Although the artist did not date his paintings and scholars have difficulty establishing a chronology within his body of works, the author of the catalogue raisonné, Clara Welcker, places the present painting amongst Avercamp’s early works (see literature). This is consistent with the composition of the present picture, in which there is an equal division between the clouded grey sky and the frozen stretch of ice. This relatively high horizon is common in early Dutch landscape painting. Another, probably early, painting by Avercamp, entitled Winter Landscape, which was sold at Lempertz, Cologne on 12 May 2012 as lot 1215, bears similarities to the work under discussion. The Lempertz painting also depicts a diagonal row of tents and a comparable composition on the left, where a bare tree, a haystack, and a barn are situated.
It is generally thought that during the course of his career, Avercamp followed the general tendency in landscape painting, lowering the horizon and enlarging the figures in the foreground in his pictures. This development is clearly illustrated in his painting Enjoying the ice near a town, which is dated circa 1620 and today conserved in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. SK-C-1705). In this painting the horizon is significantly lower than in the present painting.
It should be mentioned that Clara Welcker notes in her catalogue raisonné from 1933, that the present painting bore the name ‘Isaack van Ostade’ in the lower left (see literature), though today there are no traces visible (see technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi). Despite this, Welcker confirmed the painting to be by Hendrick Avercamp. According to Ellis Dullaart of the RKD in The Hague, the use of repoussoir on the lower left as described above, along with the treatment of the boat, support the attribution to Avercamp and relate to his other early works. Although Dullaart considers the treatment of the figures and the stretch of ice as being less typical for the artist, she also notes a significant, clearly visible pentimento revealing the original presence of an elegant couple and a dog in the left part of the central tent. In addition, underdrawing can be seen through the paint layers near the boat on the left, which is confirmed by the technical analysis of Gianluca Poldi (see below). Concluding her observations, Dullaart considers the present painting to be a combined creation by Avercamp and a workshop assistant.
Born deaf, and probably unable to speak, Avercamp was nicknamed "de Stomme van Kampen" [the mute of Kampen]. Raised in this eastern city along the river IJssel, situated close to the shores of the former inner Southern Sea, the artist would have experienced the joys of winter, and especially the ice, from a young age. Returning to his birthplace Amsterdam around 1607, he was apprenticed to Pieter Isaacsz and possibly received training from the Antwerp landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo. The year 1608 was one of the coldest in the history of the Low Countries. The frozen rivers and seafronts were a source of inspiration for Avercamp, as they had been for artists such as Pieter Breughel I and others before him, who illustrated the winter landscape and the amusements on the ice in paintings, drawings and prints.
The present painting was once part of the collection of the German born Henry Doetsch (1839–1894) who made his fortune in Spain where he was one of the founders of the company Sundheim y Doetsch and was director of the Rio Tinto Company. As a collector of old master paintings, Doetsch is thought to have been in contact with the American art historian Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) and purchased works from renowned Dutch and Italian masters. After his years in Spain, Doetsch settled in London where he continued to expand his collection and opened his house and art gallery to interested parties. At the time of Henry Doetsch’s death his collection numbered 400 paintings and 600 miniatures. A large portion was sold at Christie’s London in June 1895, by which means a number of works from the collection found their way into the Royal Collection and other prestigious institutions.
Technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi:
The work consists of a thin oak panel, 6 mm thick, of which the panels are horizontally arranged. The reverse of the panel is partially cradled.
Over the white ground a drawing was made in black chalk. Despite an extremely detailed and accurate pictorial composition, the underdrawing consists of a few broken lines vaguely locating the objects and masses; as it is only the first drawing level. A second stage of drawing, extremely thin is only visible with very high resolution IR cameras. This second drawing outlines the figures, made with a fine-tipped pencil, perhaps still black chalk, if not a metal tip leaving a dark mark. The figures are in fact taken from the great repertoire of the painter, who often assembles compositions starting from similar elements, therefore the phase of designing the composition must have been particularly important to avoid imitating or copying earlier painted landscapes.
The first stage of drawing - so elementary - is interesting not in itself, but because it shows us the creative process of Avercamp, and possibly of his workshop: the design of the composition is drawn in a few lines that point out what will be painted, they are signs of a very personal language incomprehensible to us. In this drawing, a simple ‘X’ with a vertical rectangle designates the location of the windmill, which will then be painted further down; some crossed lines seem to indicate the location of buildings or tents; complex lines are used to point out the vegetation; while the zigzag lines seem to indicate the placement of the crowds or figures.
Over this kind of underdrawing the artist painted the ice and the sky, then he drew the figures and some of the other elements. The characters are very finely drawn with slight alterations, and finally completed with paint. The pigments used, in light of the non-invasive spectroscopic analyses carried out, include azurite for all the blue areas, often dirtied with other pigments to lower the tone; vermilion in reds; ochres and brown earths; finely ground black pigment; smalt blue in the sky at the top right, in the now brown area due to the complete discolouration of the pigment, as typically occurred in many works of that era for blue smalt used with drying oil. The use of red lake is very limited, mixed with azurite to obtain grey-purple hues.
Finally, IR reflectograms highlight some changes on a pictorial level: in the haystack on the left an alternative positioning of the roof is covered, and a small shed eliminated. But the most significant modification, which occurs when the painting is almost completed, is right at the centre of the work: Avercamp and his assistant covered three figures already painted by adding the tent, on which he applied, with red ochre, his monogram as if it were embroidered on the fabric. The monogram is perfectly coherent - as testified under microscope - with the rest of the painting.
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