Who painted Iceskating before an Inn?

Iceskating before an Inn was painted by Jan van Goyen in 1650.

Where can I see Iceskating before an Inn?

Iceskating before an Inn is held by Bode Museum.

What movement is Iceskating before an Inn?

Iceskating before an Inn is associated with Dutch Golden Age.

Can I buy a print of Iceskating before an Inn?

Museum-quality prints of Iceskating before an Inn are available made-to-order from Artifact World Gallery.

Iceskating before an Inn by Jan van Goyen (1650)

About this work

Overview

Iceskating before an Inn is an oil on panel landscape painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan van Goyen, completed in 1650.

Iceskating before an Inn is an oil on panel landscape painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan van Goyen, completed in 1650. Measuring 34 by 39 centimeters, the work depicts a frozen waterway populated by skaters and players of the Dutch game colf, situated before a rural inn with a smoking chimney. The composition is dominated by an expansive, turbulent sky that occupies the upper two-thirds of the canvas. Currently held in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin under inventory number 865C, the painting is a prime example of the Haarlem school of tonal painting, demonstrating van Goyen's economical brushwork and restrained palette to capture the atmosphere of a northern winter.

Subject & Meaning

The painting captures a lively scene of winter recreation unfolding on a frozen waterway. In the foreground, figures seen from behind guide the viewer's eye onto the ice, where crowds walk, skate, and play colf, a popular Dutch game resembling modern golf that was a standard feature of winter landscapes. On the left, a large leafless tree with twisted branches stands beside a cluster of steep-roofed buildings, identified as an inn by its smoking chimney. A dog appears near the lower right, and distant structures and skaters fade into atmospheric haze near the horizon. The scene represents the local landscape and everyday life, a thematic focus for van Goyen, who translated the activities connected to the winter season into an independent category of landscape painting.

Technique & Style

Van Goyen executed this work using his highly efficient, tonal painting method. The painting features a very thin layer of oil paint on an oak panel, a technique that allowed for rapid production and minimal use of material. The ground was likely tinted light brown or ochre, over which he loosely sketched the scene using walnut ink. His palette was restricted to inexpensive, neutral pigments such as ochre, brown, gray, and muted blue, pulled directly from the earth tones of the countryside. The sky shows softer, blended handling with subtle warm shadows on the ice, while the foreground figures are rendered with quick, economical brushstrokes. The overall finish is smooth in the sky and more textured in the foreground details, achieving a striking realism and atmospheric depth despite the thin application of paint.

History & Provenance

The painting is monogrammed and dated VG 1650, though the exact location of the signature is currently unknown and not visible in photographs. Historically, the work belonged to the collection of the banker Barthold Suermondt. In 1874, the painting was acquired by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin along with the rest of the Suermondt collection. It was subsequently housed in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum under catalog number 65C in 1935. The painting is now part of the Preussischer Kulturbesitz and resides in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin with the inventory number 865C. The artwork is documented in Cornelis Hofstede de Groot's catalog raisonne, published between 1907 and 1925, as number 1154.

Context

Jan van Goyen was an extremely prolific painter of the Dutch Golden Age, leaving approximately twelve hundred paintings and over one thousand drawings. Trained by Esaias van de Velde in Haarlem, van Goyen became a leading exponent of tonal painting, a movement that rejected the highly colored landscapes of Flemish contemporaries in favor of more truthful, atmospheric views of the local countryside. To compensate for the modest prices his individual works fetched, van Goyen increased his production using the rapid, thin painting technique seen in this Berlin panel. He supplemented his income through art dealing, auctioneering, and speculating in tulips and real estate, though these ventures ultimately led to enormous debts. He died in The Hague in 1656, deeply in debt, having influenced numerous landscape painters including Jan Steen and Herman Saftleven.