Winter Landscape

Jan van de Cappelle made his name with calm water, harbours so still that the ships seem to rest on their own reflections. In this picture the water has stopped moving altogether. A canal has frozen, and villagers are out on the ice below bare trees and snow-covered thatched roofs.

Winter was a rare subject for him. He painted only about 20 winter landscapes, and the few that carry a date all belong to 1652 and 1653. This canvas is one of them, signed and dated 1653 at the lower centre.

Its early history is uncertain. It may once have belonged to the English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, and later to William Hardman, a Manchester collector. It then passed through the London dealer Colnaghi, and the Mauritshuis bought it in 1893. The museum shows it today in the Gallery Prince Willem V, its second venue on the Buitenhof in The Hague.