Winter Landscape with Mill and Sleigh Ride

The 17th century in the Dutch Republic was cold in a way we've half forgotten. Winters in these decades froze the canals hard enough to carry sleighs, and Dutch families took to the ice for skating and sleigh rides as a kind of seasonal freedom. Berchem, who spent most of his career painting warm southern pastures, turned here to his own frozen country. A mill stands against a pale sky, a horse pulls a sleigh across the ice, and small figures move along the bank. Winter scenes are rare in his hand, and only a handful survive. He painted it in 1665, and the low grey light over the snow is the ordinary weather of a Dutch January.