Panel - 32.5 x 52.7 cmSnow landscapes, XVIIth Paintings
Provenance:
• J.F. Euwen collection, Amsterdam, 1932;
• private collection, Belgium.
While landscapes were recognised as a pictorial genre in their own right in the 17th century, Adam van...
read moreProvenance:
• J.F. Euwen collection, Amsterdam, 1932;
• private collection, Belgium.
While landscapes were recognised as a pictorial genre in their own right in the 17th century, Adam van Breen chose to cultivate a ‘sub-genre’ in one of the finest ways: winter woodland scenes, known as ‘Winterkens’.
Within his specialist area, of which he was one of the pioneers like Hendrick Avercamp, this master of winter scenes excelled at portraying the bustle created by skaters on the frozen waterways. Our panel can be compared with the skating scene kept at the Louvre both in terms of its subject and its technique of a similar quality.
In a casual manner, Adam van Breen portrays a moment in the daily life of the inhabitants of the North in the 17th century. Skaters joyously frolic on a frozen river. Here we experience our artist's habit of animating these scenes with characters from the social elite whose clothes, painted in sparkling colours, give this Winter landscape with skaters its warm colours.
Thanks to a palette of an infinite chromatic subtlety, our artist plays with shades ranging from grey to cream in an effort to give this scene of entertainment and pleasure a true sense of cold.
A delicate luminosity emanating from the grey, cloudy sky with thin rays of sunlight piercing through enhances these colours which merge together in order to better reveal this scene with its subtle tonal layers, thus paying homage to the talent of Adam van Breen as a colourist.
All these elements make this painting one of the masterpieces of this genre, allowing us to justly evaluate this unknown artist who died at an early age, and who played a major role in the development of Dutch winter landscapes, a genre continued by A. van der Neer, of course, but also A. Verstralen and A. Vermeulen.
Literature : E. Plietzsch, Holländische und Flämische maler des XVII. Jahrh, Seemann Verlag, Leipzig, 1960, p.227, illustration No. 149.
Catalogus der tentoonstelling van Hollandsche winterlandschappen uit de 17e eeuw, Goudstikker, Amsterdam, 1932, pp. 111-115, illustration No. 20.
More informations
1590 – The Hague – 1645
Although we are currently lacking precise information about the life of Adam van Breen, it has however been established that he came to work in The Hague between 1611...
read more1590 – The Hague – 1645
Although we are currently lacking precise information about the life of Adam van Breen, it has however been established that he came to work in The Hague between 1611 and 1618. He married in 1611 and in 1612 he was registered with the guild in this town.
Essentially a painter of winter landscapes, his style is close to that of van de Velde who also worked in The Hague, although he was more often inspired by Hendrick and Barendt Avercamp in his choice of subjects. Contrary to these two painters, the characters he features in his paintings are stockier and have a more confirmed presence; he sometimes even goes as far as painting the portrait of some of them. Although a landscape painter, he was undoubtedly influenced by the official context of The Hague, which was the seat of the court and the government on several occasions during its history, and developed a remarkable school of portrait painters.
In 1617, he illustrated the work “the military evolutions of the Prince of Nassau”. In the 1640s, he left the Netherlands to live in Christiana (Oslo). Several handsome portraits were executed during this Norwegian period.
