Andreas Schelfhout Dutch, 1787-1870

In the 1840's, when Andreas Schelfhout painted the present lot, the artist  was universally admired for his perfectly balanced compositions, superb brushwork and masterful depiction of the sky and ice. B.C. Koekkoek immediately recognised his unique talent and wrote admiringly: 'Would you like to see a flat and simple country scene, carrying the mark of nature, the brand of truth, turned into a piece of elegance and beauty, then consider the works of our great Schelfhout. There you will find simple nature depicted at its most gracious, at the same time with a faithfulness and truth which only Schelfhout is capable of' (B.C. Koekkoek, Herinneringen en Mededeelingen van eenen Landschapschilder, 1841).

Schelfhout was the son of the gilder and frame maker Jean Baptiste Schelfhout. He worked in his father's business till the age of 24. To develop his painterly skills, he served his apprenticeship with Johannes Breckenheimer, with whom he studied for four years. This being the only formal education he received, Schelfhout liked to present himself as largely self-taught, 'nature' being his only teacher.

Schelfhout's unique talent surfaced for the first time in 1818, when he submitted a winter landscape to the exhibition of Living Masters in Amsterdam, where his work was applauded by many. It marked the beginning of an immensely successful career. Only five years later, in 1823, one of his skating scenes earned him a gold medal at an exhibition in Ghent, one of many rewards he received throughout his long and fruitful career.

The present lot is a wonderful example of Schelfhout's virtuosity. It was painted in 1842, at the height of his fame. This unusually large panel shows a classical skating scene with many figures on a frozen waterway. On the foreground we see a horse-drawn sleigh that is being loaded, the horses standing at rest. The superb depiction of the sky and ice are hallmarks of the artist's style. The treatment of the ice is unsurpassed: the scratches, tears and floes are depicted with great natural quality, effortlessly, sometimes only hinting at it with the back of the brush. The lively scene is seen under a cloudy yet transluscent sky, which earned Schelfhout the nickname 'Claude Lorrain of the winter landscapes'. By using a low horizon, Schelfhout rendered a great depth to the picture, which allows the eye of the beholder to travel for miles, to the figures and the windmill in the far distance. The present lot indicates perfectly why Schelfhout was crowned 'leader' of Dutch romantic landscape painting by the art magazine Kunstkronijk in 1857.