Anonymous sale, Cologne, Lempertz, 16 November 2002, lot 1010.
The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's:
This painting is on an oak panel, quite heavily cradled. There is no sign of any previously serious cracking or warping, just a single brief crack running in from the centre of the right edge. A fine line of retouching just above running through the cottages may suggest another incipient crack but could also simply be to mute the grain of the wood in that place. There do not seem to have been any joints.
The recent restoration (perhaps in Cologne) shows much underlying drawing and various pentimenti, which have grown more visible with the increasing transparency of the paint naturally over time. There are small, minor retouchings scattered across the surface, but no apparent accidental damage. Much original paint is preserved beautifully intact, with fascinatingly precise, minute definitions within each figure of costume or character. The wider background is also in exceptionally good condition overall with equally finely defined little village barns and cottages. There are perhaps rather more small surface retouchings in the upper sky, which is rather thin. Some retouchings are also clustered around the outlines in particular of the central group, although much detail in their extraordinarily mannered outfits has remained intact. The heads of the couple seated beneath the tree at lower left have either been left blurred or have become so, with some retouching there as well, however their elegant costumes are nicely preserved.
This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
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On the outskirts of a village, a skating party of fashionably dressed gentlefolk pause to converse, while behind them two young men play a game of kolf and other villagers go about their day to day business. The design of this charming winter landscape was evidently popular among Van Breen's patrons, for it is known in at least six painted versions, as well as one drawing, each with very slight variations in detail. None of the extant versions is signed or dated, but the details of the costume of the figures would place the execution of the picture between 1610 and 1620. The variations of handling and detail of these works makes it very difficult to assign any one work as a prime version, but recent cleaning and infra-red reflectography has revealed a wealth of fine and fluent underdrawing in the present panel which must surely make it a contender (fig. 1). This reveals a large number of
pentimenti: these are particularly clear on the left hand side of the composition, where the painter has adjusted the hats and costumes of the gentleman and lady walking towards us, and moved the figures of a father and mother with their child behind them more to the right.
Not much is known of Van Breen's life and career. He was probably born in Amsterdam, for in his marriage contract in 1611 in The Hague he is described as a 'jonkman van Amsterdam'. The following year he was admitted to the Guild of Saint Luke in the same city. Van Breen seems to have remained in The Hague until 1622-4 when he was in Amsterdam, and after which bankruptcy forced him to seek employment in Oslo until 1628. He seems to have returned to Amsterdam after this, but went back again to Norway in the mid 1630s, and probably remained there until his death. Few of his works are signed or dated, but two of 1611 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and Private Collection) clearly show his debt to the work of his fellow countryman Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634). This is also true of a signed extensive Winter landscape formerly with W.B. Asscher in London, in which the group of elegant figures in the foreground of this painting are also to be found.
1. These include those in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, (inv. 1738) panel, 35 x 65 cm.; that formerly with Galerie de Jonckheere in Paris, panel 34.2 x 64.3 cm. (exhibited Paris, XIXe Biennale des Antiquaires, 18 September - 4 October 1998); that formerly in the Stumpf collection in Berlin, panel 34.5 x 62 cm. (reproduced in W. Bernt, The Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century, London 1970, vol. I, no. 184); another extended version formerly with De Boer, Amsterdam, 1935, panel, 40.5 x 82 cm., and finally a copy sold London, Sotheby's, 3 July 1996, lot 151. The drawing is in Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, inv. no. Z.529.
