Ice Sleighs

About this work

You see icy rivers crowded with horse-drawn sleighs. The lines are sharp but fuzzy, like rough pencil marks. Peeter Bout etched this in the late 1600s, when winters in the Netherlands stayed cold for months. He cut the image into metal with acid, then inked it to print. The dry, cold light feels real even on paper. Maybe he knew how rare such scenes would become. Look up the technique called etching to see how it works.