Winter Landscape With Skaters- Anthonie Verstraelen (1594-1641)

17th century Dutch school Oil on canvas / panel Rare 17th century frame with inverted profile in blackened pear wood and guilloché Total dimensions: 58 x 64 cm. The panel alone: 27 x 31 cm Our painting is a work attributed to the Dutch painter of the Golden Age Anthonie Verstraelen (1594-1641), known for his paintings of winter landscapes animated by skaters. Born in Gorinchem in 1594 and died in Amsterdam in 1641, the Van Stralen family comes from Weert where his father, Gillis van Stralen, was a fabric merchant. They moved to Gorinchem between 1584 and 1590, possibly due to the advancing armies of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. He was married on November 11, 1628, aged 34, to Magdalena Bosijn from Amsterdam (De Vries 1886), then around 1635 to Catalijntje van Oosten from Antwerp, with whom he settled in Amsterdam in the Oude Spiegelstraat where they had two children. He was buried in the Westerkerk in 1641, and in 1644 the sale of his paintings provided two hundred guilders for his two children. The mother remarried with their guardian Emmanuel Jacobsz. Van Hoogerheijm, a good painter from Leiden. Winter scenes reached their peak in the Dutch Golden Age. By focusing on the representations of snow and cold, it is possible to see if there is a link between these paintings and the climate of the time, or even a concomitance between the real and painted types of winter. The success of these winter scenes helping, it appears that many painters ignored the climate of the time and made winter genre scenes, to the point of creating a real imagery. Attracting many artists and intellectuals in its cities, Holland knows in the XVIIth century a golden age. Economic prosperity and high culture go hand in hand with the spectacular rise of the painting "social cement" helping "to unite and shape a nation in the process of being built" (M. Milner Kahr, 1998). Within the different genres of painting (portrait, landscape, genre scene ...), winter scenes occupy an important place. Representing often snowy landscapes, they have been described as faithful testimonies of the cold climate during the Little Ice Age. However, it is interesting to cross them with the history of the climate to make the share of the representations and the climatic reality of this Dutch Golden Age (term coined in the XIXth century). Thus, if historical testimonies present snow as a disturbing and painful element, most painters show winter scenes and landscapes where a whole society has fun in the great outdoors while skating. Very good state of conservation. Sold with invoice & certificate