Andreas Schelfhout

J.M Kohn, Vienna;

His sale, Vienna, Kunst-Salon Pisko, 6 April 1908, lot 51;

With MacConnal-Mason & Son, Ltd, London;

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 14 November 2012, lot 258, for €175,000;

Where acquired by the present owner.

The present winter scene dated 1845 is a fine example of Schelfhout's mature style, with its atmospheric depiction of the sky and the cracks and skating tracks in the ice, created by thin brushstrokes. This masterpiece of nineteenth-century Dutch Romanticism takes inspiration from the great tradition of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting in relation to composition, colour and execution. The frozen river landscapes of Salomon van Ruysdael, Aert van der Neer and Aelbert Cuyp could have been sources of inspiration for Schelfhout, especially Cuyp's ice scenes with their low vantage points and the sensitivity to light and reflections.