Winter landscapes are comparatively scarce within Van Goyen's prolific œuvre, numbering only around a hundred of over twelve hundred paintings, though he painted them throughout his career. Unlike the depiction of Winter in lot 11, which is conceived in relation to its Summer counterpart, here the theme is treated as an independent subject. This work is a fine example of Van Goyen's mature style, executed when he had fully developed the technique for which he is most famed – the use of a limited palette of colours to create tonal, almost monochromatic paintings. Here, this approach is employed to utmost effect, the range of shades in the greys, blues and ochres subtly conveying the cold, icy atmosphere of a scene on the frozen river.

Van Goyen has deliberately employed the mauve-brown ground, allowing it to be more apparent in the sky at the horizon line, though he paints more thickly in the bright areas of cloud in the upper half of the composition. Indeed, the confidence and rapidity of his brushstrokes is evident throughout this work, which is typical of this period in its evocation of mood through the way the sky and clouds, and their reflection on the ice, appear in relation to light and weather conditions, and the way in which a sense of depth is achieved – not through diagonal compositional devices, as in Van Goyen's works of the 1620s and 30s – but through elements positioned along horizontals, masterfully manipulated in their proportions to create a convincing impression of recession.

In the early 1640s, Van Goyen was living in The Hague, and he seems to have particularly favoured winter landscapes at this time, some with recognisbale views of cities, such as Dordrecht. Many of his paintings are based on the numerous drawings that he made on his sketching trips, recording the activities of figures on the ice, engaged both in everyday business, such as transporting people or goods, and in pleasure, such as playing kolf or skating. The majority of these sketches appear to have been made for their own sake – rarely are they preparatory for finished paintings – but certain motifs, such as the figure in the left foreground here who kneels to tie up his skates, or the group in the horse-drawn sledge and the man attending to it, recur in his drawings, which clearly served as models for his painted staffage (figs 1 and 2).¹

This composition is a variant of a winter scene in oval format, likewise signed and dated 1642, recorded in the collection of Lady Altrinchan, Tormarton Court.² In a letter of 1984, Beck described the present picture as ‘a splendid example’, and suggests himself that it should be identified with all three of his catalogue entries: nos 62a–c (see Literature).

¹ See two drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/459306 and https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/335557
² See Beck 1973, pp. 13–14, no. 24, reproduced.