Winter Landscape – Dutch School, C. 1700, Follower Of Nicolaes Berchem

Oil on canvas. Dutch School, c. 1700, follower of Nicolaes Berchem.
From the end of the 13th century to the middle of the 19th century, Europe went through a Little Ice Age characterized by very low temperatures such as it had not experienced since the Great Ice Age which occurred 10,000 years previously. In 1564, an Antwerp chronicler testified that ten weeks of consecutive frost allowed the people of Antwerp to cross the Scheldt on foot and to set up a fair there for a few weeks where food and drinks were served. If winter is rich in leisure activities and funny anecdotes that nourish Dutch genre painting, this season also brings atmospheric and luminous effects such as those represented in our work. Favoring a realistic vision of the landscape in vogue in the second half of the 17th century, our painter adopts a naturalistic manner characterized by a low horizon line along which figures unfold. Busy with their daily work, some characters seem captured on the spot in the middle of their work while others chat on their return from fishing and some take a break while smoking a pipe. This everyday scene is enveloped by a cloudy sky from which the rays of a low winter sun emerge, imprinting shadows and colors on the whole. This manner is comparable to the school of Italianate landscape represented by artists who, inspired by the Arcadian art of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Gellée, assimilated all the variety of effects of light on objects. However, most of them rarely painted in winter. Among these Italianists who were sometimes inspired by this season, we can cite Nicolaes Berchem who produced a painting (formerly in the Lionel Nathan de Rotschild collection) showing a composition similar to ours, bordered by an ocher-brown building from which leaves a bridge crossing a frozen watercourse on which groups of figures are active. However, the manner of our painter and the clothing of his characters place us more likely around 1700, among Berchem's followers.

We have chosen to present this animated landscape to you in a Roman frame in molded, gilded and yellow-rechampi wood from the 17th century, Carlo Maratta type.
Dimensions: 48 x 60.5 cm – 59 x 71 cm with the frame

Biography: Nicolaes Berchem (Haarlem, October 1, 1620 – Amsterdam, February 18, 1683) began his apprenticeship with his father, a still life painter. According to Houbraken, he continued it with Jan van Goyen and Claes Moeyaert before being received master at the guild of Saint Luke in Haarlem in 1642. Without us being sure that he made the trip to Italy, Nicolaes Berchem developed a very Italianate way from the 1650s, becoming the leader of the second generation of Italianate Dutch painters. Having produced some 850 paintings, Berchem enjoyed significant success which was reflected in the high price of his works compared to those of his peers. Thus, while the average price of a painting by Jacob van Ruysdael was 28 florins during the last third of the 17th century, it was 91 florins for a landscape by Berchem. To satisfy demand, he surrounded himself with numerous apprentices, among whom Karel Dujardin was the most talented epigone.

Bibliography:
- HARWOOD, Laurie B., BROWN, Christopher, Inspired by Italy: Dutch Landscape Painting 1600-1700, London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2002.
- SUCHTELEN (van), Ariane (dir.), Holland Frozen in Time: The Dutch Winter Landscape in the Golden Age, Zwolle, Waanders, 2001.
- SUTTON, Peter C., Masters of 17th Century Dutch Landscape Painting, (exp. cat. Boston Museum of fine arts, 1987), Boston Museum of Fine Arts Publishing, 1987.