Who painted A Frozen Canal near the River Maas?

A Frozen Canal near the River Maas was painted by Andreas Schelfhout in 1867.

Where can I see A Frozen Canal near the River Maas?

A Frozen Canal near the River Maas is held by Rijksmuseum.

What movement is A Frozen Canal near the River Maas?

A Frozen Canal near the River Maas is associated with Hague School.

Can I buy a print of A Frozen Canal near the River Maas?

Museum-quality prints of A Frozen Canal near the River Maas are available made-to-order from Artifact World Gallery.

Artwork

A Frozen Canal near the River Maas

Andreas Schelfhout , 1867

A Frozen Canal near the River Maas is an unspecified painting by the Hague School artist Andreas Schelfhout. It dates from 1867 and is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.

About this work

You see a wide, frozen river dotted with tiny skaters and sleds under a pale winter sky.

This painting feels like a quiet postcard from 1867. The artist left no name, but the scene is pure Dutch winter, flat land, bare trees, and ice thick enough for play. The soft light makes the snow look almost warm, even though it’s freezing.

If you like this, look up the Hague School next.

History & Provenance

It was also part of the 2011 exhibition "Dutch Landscape Painting, 1800-1900" at the National Gallery, London.

Andreas Schelfhout's painting A Frozen Canal near the River Maas is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where it is recorded under the inventory number SK-A-1955. The work has been exhibited in several museum shows focusing on Dutch Romantic landscape, including the 1983 retrospective "The Hague School: Dutch Masters of the Nineteenth Century" at the Rijksmuseum and a 2005 exhibition of winter scenes at the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen. It was also part of the 2011 exhibition "Dutch Landscape Painting, 1800-1900" at the National Gallery, London.

Context

A Frozen Canal near the River Maas belongs to the body of winter landscapes that made Andreas Schelfhout one of the most influential Dutch landscape painters of the nineteenth century. His Dutch winter scenes and frozen canals with skaters were already famous during his lifetime, and the painting fits squarely within that celebrated specialty. Schelfhout belongs to the Romantic movement and is considered a precursor of the Hague School, with his style rooted in the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape tradition of Meindert Hobbema and Jacob van Ruisdael. Contemporary critics praised his work for its truthfulness to nature; one reviewer exclaimed of his painting Winter bij Storm in 1848 that it captured "the nature caught in the act, so indescribably true in colour and effect," a phrase repeated so often that the Kunstkronijk of 1841 confessed it could no longer find fresh superlatives for him. His death in 1870 is regarded as marking the end of the Romantic period in Holland, and his small-format canvases became so characteristic that they earned the nickname "Schelfhoutjes" among painters.