Jan Josefsz. van Goyen Leiden 1596 - 1656 The Hague

Douairière d'Hoop van Alstein;
His deceased sale, Ghent, Predhom, 26 july 1849, lot 109 (90 francs to Forent);
J.V. van Bever;
His sale, Brussels, Le Roy, 10 March 1884, lot 29;
Anonymous sale, Cologne, Heberle, 28 June 1890, lot 31 (2000 DM);
Edmond Huybrechts;
His deceased sale, Antwerp, Le Roy, 12 May 1902, lot 84 (8,100 francs to Sedelmeyer);
Marquise de Ganay;
Her sale, Paris, Galerie George Petit, 8-10 May 1922, lot 49 (42,000FF);
Private collection;
Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Gentleman"), London, Sotheby's, 7 July 1993, lot 45;
With Richard Green, London, from whom acquired by the present owner.

Paris, Galerie Charles Sedelmeyer, 1902, no. 16;
London, Richard Green, Important Old Master Paintings, 1994, no. 6;
London, Richard Green, Jan Van Goyen, 1996, no. 9.

T. von Frimmel, "Bemerkungen über den polychromen Frühstil des Jan van Goyen", in Blätter für Gemäldekunde, vol. II, 1905, pp. 71-76, cat. no. 4;
C. Dreyfus, Les Arts, 1909, p. 4, no. 96;
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. VIII, London 1927, p. 300, no. 1189;
H.-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656, vol. II, Amsterdam 1973, p. 24, cat. no. 47;
H.-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen, exhibiton catalogue, London 1996, no. 9, reproduced.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine perfectly flat oak panel, with two joints. There are wooden supporting blocks behind the upper joint, but it does not appear ever to have opened or been reglued, and lower joint is untouched. There are a few little retouchings by the upper joint but not systematically along its length. The restoration is quite recent, with a scattering of small retouchings in the sky, slightly more to the left of the windmill, and in the dark cloud at upper centre. In the ice there is a narrow semi circular scrape by the central skating figure with a staff below the windmill, and a concentration of retouching in the lower left corner which is worn. There are some other rather thinner places, not necessarily retouched, for instance in the ice above the grasses at lower right, and in the lower central ice, with occasional small rather messy places: in the central cottage, on the hull of the boat on the left, in the brown cloak of the man nearby and the face of the man in front of the windmill. However the figures generally are in beautiful condition, with the drawing now visible in many places as the paint has grown more naturally transparent, and the horse drawn sledge on the right is especially fine and intact, as is the detail of the distant landscape. The sky is also very largely in good strong unworn condition, with the blue of the upper sky complete and untouched. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Dated 1630, this is an extremely rare example of a winter landscape by Van Goyen from the years 1628-38 and illustrates his immediate mastery of the genre, and it is therefore surprising that he spent much of the 1630s concentrating on river landscapes, dune landscapes and village scenes, only returning properly to the winter landscape in 1638. His several winter landscapes from that year are, however, clearly indebted to the present work, painted eight years earlier; compare, for example, with his 1638 work formerly with De Boer, Amsterdam,¹ or with another from that year in Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal.²  Similarities between the latter and the present work are not merely compositional; as is often the case in his oeuvre, several motifs are repeated, most obviously the skater with the red jacket in the foreground who appears in the Lakenhal picture in reverse.

Van Goyen spent much of the 1620s still heavily influenced by Esaias van de Velde, under whom he had studied in 1618-19. In 1627 he broke away from the example of his master and his works after this date show a new maturity which marks the beginning of his own individual style. His winter landscapes of the 1620s are characterised, like Van de Velde's, by a composition cluttered with figures, buildings and trees. With this painting however, dated 1630, Van Goyen propels the genre into the new decade. After this work his winter landscapes, and those of many of his peers, are dominated by a huge, overpowering sky (which here takes up over three-quarters of the composition) and the landscape itself is opened up so creating a greater sense of spatial depth.

Of particular interest in this work is the presence of numerous underdrawings and pentimenti, on and around the figures. During his travels Van Goyen filled several sketchbooks with rapid studies of landscapes, buildings, animals and figures, which he would then use as the basis for elements in his oil paintings. The liberally, and often wildly, executed pencil marks that characterize this work are typical of Van Goyen's approach to drawing from this date onwards, where previously he had been far more meticulous. Both in terms of composition and technique, this panel should therefore be considered an important transitional work marking the beginning of the artist's maturity.

1.  See H.-U. Beck, under Literature, p. 26, no. 52, reproduced.
2.  See C. Vogelaar et al., Jan van Goyen, exhibition catalogue, Leiden and Zwolle 1996, p. 104, no. 20, reproduced.