RCEWA Case 6 (2014-15): A panoramic Winter landscape with a multitude of figures on a frozen river, by Hendrick Avercamp Expert adviser’s statement Reviewing Committee Secretary’s note: Please note that any illustrations referred to have not been reproduced on the Arts Council England website

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. Brief Description of item(s)

Hendrick Avercamp (Dutch, 1585–1634)

A Panoramic Winter Landscape with a multitude of Figures on a frozen River, about 1610

oil on oak panel

69.2 x 109 cm; original dimensions about 55 x 109 cm

CONDITION

The painting was selectively cleaned prior to sale in July 2014 to aid legibility. There are no

major losses to the paint surface, but there are numerous small losses and retouchings, both

old and modern, throughout. Pentimenti of earlier designs have become visible, a

characteristic feature of the artist’s paintings that is particularly pronounced here in the

foreground figural groupings. Probably in the eighteenth century, the format of the painting

was significantly altered by the addition of an oak plank approximately 14 cm in width across

the top of the painting (discussed in more detail below). This addition is now largely masked

by the frame. Dendrochronological examination of the original oak panel suggests a felling

date after 1590, which fits comfortably with the proposed date of the painting on stylistic

grounds to about 1610.

2. Context

PROVENANCE

Possibly collection James Caulfeild-Browne, 2nd Baron Kilmaine (1765–1825), The Neale, Co. Mayo, Ireland;1

by descent to Francis William Browne, 4th Baron Kilmaine (1843–1907), The Neale, Co. Mayo, Ireland;

thence by family descent

The painting is unpublished and has not been publicly exhibited.

3. Waverley criteria

It is the opinion of the expert advisor that A Panoramic Winter Landscape by Hendrick

Avercamp meets Waverly criteria two and three. The painting is an outstanding example of

Hendrick Avercamp’s work from the early phase of his career, and a charming record of

everyday life in the Dutch Republic. From the first decade of the seventeenth century

1 The 2014 sale catalogue notes that although the painting is not documented before 1907, it very

likely entered the collection at an earlier date: the 2nd

Baron Kilmaine was acquiring paintings in the 1790s.

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Avercamp was a leading figure in the development of the Dutch winter landscape. Featuring

elevated views over frozen landscapes teeming with the minutiae of everyday life, his early

winter scenes (c. 1608–15) demonstrate the importance of sixteenth-century Flemish artists

like Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the emergence of this tradition. There are five paintings by

Avercamp in public collections in the United Kingdom: two in the National Gallery, one in the

National Galleries of Scotland, and two in the Harold Samuel Collection (City of London

Corporation). The work under consideration is of high quality and unusually large for the

artist, a colourful and engaging example of his astute observation of seventeenth-century

Dutch society and his evocative recreation of winter’s pale and icy mists.

DETAILED CASE 1. Detailed description of item(s) if more than in Executive summary, and any comments. Beneath a sky veiled by pastel clouds, a crowd of figures swarms over a broad

stretch of frozen river. Accomplished skaters moving swiftly over the ice vie with

skittish novices clutching chairs or sledges for balance; well-dressed citizens

promenade while humbler folk go about their chores, temporarily substituting slick ice

for rutted paths. A few enterprising citizens sell snacks from makeshift huts and rude

tables. Houses, inns and a church line the snowy banks; bare trees etch their delicate

tracery against the sky. In the distance, in the centre of the river, is a castle linked to

the mainland by a narrow wooden footbridge.

Hendrick Avercamp’s lively winter scenes express a child-like wonderment at how

mundane activities are magically transformed when water becomes solid ice. They

catalogue the varied chores and leisure activities popular in the seventeenth century,

performed by citizens from all sectors of society. Details of costume, tools and

conveyances are meticulously recorded. Avercamp’s compositions document as well

the ‘Little Ice Age’ of the seventeenth century, when annual temperatures averaged

several degrees lower than today.2 Across northern Europe, winters were markedly

colder and snowier; rivers and canals regularly froze solid, completely altering local

topography. Avercamp’s landscape scenes are more than dry records of

meteorological data or social history, however; they conjure all the chill vapours and

hazy pastel light of a damp winter’s day.

2 For an overview of climactic conditions during the period, see Adriaan M. J. De Kraker, “The Little Ice

Age: Harsh Winters between 1550 and 1650”, in Pieter Roelofs et al., Hendrick Avercamp, Master of the Ice Scene, exh. cat. Amsterdam and Washington, 2010 [hereafter Amsterdam and Washington 2010], pp. 23–29.

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Hendrick Avercamp was baptised in Amsterdam on 27 January 1585.3 In the

following year his family moved to the town of Kampen in the province of Overijssel,

to the northeast of Amsterdam, and became prominent citizens in the town. In the

first decade of the seventeenth century Hendrick went to Amsterdam, where he may

have studied with the portrait and history painter Pieter Isaacksz (1569–1625).

Avercamp returned to Kampen by 1613, and seems have remained there for the rest

of his life. He was buried in the St Nicholaaskerk in Kampen on 15 May 1634.

The artist is often referred to as ‘De Stomme van Kampen’ (The Mute of Kampen),

and indeed contemporary documents regularly describe him as ‘stom’. He

specialized in depicting winter landscapes, and among the early Dutch ‘realist’

landscape painters is credited with elevating scenes of the frozen local countryside to

a popular artistic speciality. Few works by the artist are dated, so a definitive

chronology is difficult to reconstruct. Early compositions (c. 1605–15) are extensively

populated with tiny figures and crowded with narrative detail, reflecting the influence

of the sixteenth-century Flemish master Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/30–1569) and

his Dutch followers, such as David Vinckboons (1576–1629). Typically, a

shimmering expanse of ice is flanked by buildings deliberately placed to lead the eye

into the distance. From about 1615–20 Avercamp seems to have focused on larger

figures arranged in compact horizontal groupings, while works from the final phase of

his career tend to be more simply composed, with a return to smaller figures and a

greater emphasis on atmospheric effects. Hendrick’s nephew Barent van Avercamp

(c. 1612–1679) painted winter landscapes in the style of his uncle, but these are

uniformly less detailed and less accomplished.

On stylistic grounds, A Panoramic Winter Landscape can probably be dated to about

1610: discounting the added strip at the top it features the relatively high horizon and

dense crowd typical of works from this period, and can be compared with works such

as the Winter Landscape with a Castle, dated 1608 (fig. 1; see APPENDIX) or Winter

Landscape with Skaters (fig. 2). Avercamp routinely reused figures and motifs in his

compositions. Although some elements evolved through several paintings, for the

most part they recur in works executed close in time. Elements comparable to ones

3 Main references on the artist are: Clara J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp 1585–1634 bijgenaamd "De

stomme van Campen" en Barent Avercamp 1612–1679 "Schilders tot Campen”, rev. ed., with catalogue by D.J.Hensbroek-van der Poel (Doornspijk, 1979); and Amsterdam and Washington 2010.

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in the present work have been identified in paintings dated to about 1608 and slightly

later.4

The original appearance of A Panoramic Winter Landscape has been significantly

altered by the addition, probably in the eighteenth century, of an oak plank

approximately 14 cm in width across the top of the painting. This added strip is at

present largely masked by the frame; the narrow band left visible approximates the

original height of the painting, which was trimmed to facilitate the attachment of the

extension. The alteration was undoubtedly made to visually ‘lower’ the horizon of

Avercamp’s painting in keeping with later developments in Dutch landscape painting.

The original composition was painted on an oak panel formed of two planks from the

same tree, joined horizontally; dendrochronological examination suggests a felling

date after 1590.5 The upper plank is also of oak, but with a felling date of after 1627.

X-radiographs clearly show that this upper panel had previously served as the

support for another painting, probably a portrait, turned horizontally: a pattern of

black-and-white checkered floor tiles can be detected beneath the visible paint layer

at upper right.6

2. Detailed explanation of the outstanding significance of the item(s).

Hendrick Avercamp was the key figure in the transition of the winter landscape from

the highly detailed and encyclopaedic panoramas created by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

to simpler, more naturalistic views of the Dutch countryside. His atmospheric

landscapes evoke the contagious excitement of a world transformed by ice, and

beautifully capture the delicate effects of frosty mists arising from the frozen ground.

Works like A Panoramic Winter Landscape offer a unique view of everyday life: ice

transformed society as it transformed the land, allowing citizens from all ranks of

society to freely mingle. Moreover the artist’s delicate painting style, his prolific use

(and reuse) of drawn figure studies and his habit of making detailed underdrawings

4 Several of these are described in the 2014 sale catalogue entry.

5 Analysis conducted by Ian Tyers of Dendrochronological Consultancy Ltd in April 2013; see sale

catalogue Sotheby’s London 9 July 2014, lot 4. 6 The later felling date, combined with the fact that the added panel had previously been used for

another painting, make it unlikely that Avercamp himself (who died in 1634) had any part in this alteration.

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provide fascinating material for the study of seventeenth-century materials and

technique.7

Avercamp’s icy worlds inspired a succession of seventeenth-century Dutch artists –

among them Esaias van de Velde, Jan van Goyen, Isaak van Ostade, Jacob van

Ruisdael, Aert van der Neer and Adriaen van de Velde – who either painted an

occasional winter landscape or adoped it as their speciality. Works by these later

artists figure strongly in many UK collections of Dutch paintings yet there are, as the

above Summary notes, only a handful of works by Hendrick Avercamp in the United

Kingdom: two paintings in the National Gallery (figs. 3–4), one in the National

Galleries of Scotland (fig. 5), and two in the Harold Samuel Collection (City of London

Corporation, figs. 6–7). The Royal Collection, the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam

Museum have important holdings of drawings by Avercamp, several of which are

large coloured drawings that the artist presumably made for sale on the open

market.8 Works by Avercamp in private hands in the UK include paintings in the

collections of Willem Baron van Dedem and the Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle,

the latter possibly a replica of a composition in the Museum in Schwerin. A

Panoramic Winter Landscape is a particularly striking example of an important step in

the development of Dutch landscape painting in the opening decades of the

seventeenth century.

7 See Arie Wallert and Ige Verslype, “Ice and Sky, Sky and Ice: Technical Aspects”, in Amsterdam and

Washington 2010, pp. 129–39. 8 Marijn Schapelhouman, in Amsterdam and Washington 2010, p. 116

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Hendrick Avercamp, A Panoramic Winter Landscape with a multitude of Figures on a frozen River, about 1610, oil

on oak panel, 69.2 x 109 cm; original dimensions c. 55 x 109 cm

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APPENDIX: Comparative Illustrations

Fig. 1. Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape with a Castle, 1608, oil on panel, 33 x 55.5 cm. Bergen,

Kunstmuseum

Fig. 2. Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape with Skaters, c. 1608, oil on panel, 77.3 x 131.9 cm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Fig. 3. Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle, c. 1608–9, oil on oak, 40.7 x 40.7 cm, London, The National Gallery

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Fig. 4. Hendrick Avercamp, A Scene on the Ice near a Town, c. 1615, oil on oak, 58 x 89.8 cm, London, The National Gallery

Fig. 5. Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape, c. 1610–20, oil on copper, 28.3 x 42.4 cm, National Galleries of

Scotland, Edinburgh

Fig. 6. Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape on the River Ijsel, near Kampen, Holland, c. 1615, oil on panel, 53 x 96 cm, City of London Corporation

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Fig. 6. Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape with a Frozen River and Figures, c.1620, oil on copper, 38 x 64 cm, City of London Corporation