Artwork
On the ice near a town
On the ice near a town is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem. It dates from 1647 and is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
Berghem 1647’ in the lower left and entered the museum through the 1809 sale of Jan Bernd Bicker, later acquired from the Kabinet Van Heteren Gevers collection.
The work shows a frozen river outside a town’s walls, with a stone bridge, a burning kiln and a landscape of ice. Figures include a horse, a man dragging wood, two men conversing and a skater, while a lime kiln burns in the background. The scene combines labor and recreation, typical of Dutch winter genre painting, and the Rijksmuseum notes its pendant relationship to another Berchem winter view, though the connection remains uncertain.
The painting is signed ‘C.Berghem 1647’ in the lower left and entered the museum through the 1809 sale of Jan Bernd Bicker, later acquired from the Kabinet Van Heteren Gevers collection.
Technique & Style
Executed in 1647, this landscape is rendered in oil paint on a wooden panel. The work measures 39.5 cm in height and 48.5 cm in width. An indistinct signature and date, reading 'C.Berghem 1647', are located in the lower left corner.
Stylistically, the composition depicts a winter scene outside city walls, featuring a frozen moat with figures skating and conversing near a white horse. The background includes a stone bridge and a burning lime kiln. The painting is considered by the Rijksmuseum to be a potential pendant to another Berchem work of identical dimensions, though this relationship remains uncertain due to differing provenance histories.
History & Provenance
On the ice near a town is an oil painting on panel measuring 39.5 × 48.5 cm, created by Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem in 1647. The work is signed and dated “C.Berghem 1647” in the lower left corner. It entered the collection of merchant Jan Bernd Bicker, who owned the piece until its auction on 19 July 1809.
The Rijksmuseum acquired the painting from the Kabinet Van Heteren Gevers collection, purchased on 8 June 1809. The work remains in the Rijksmuseum’s collection in Amsterdam.
Context
Critical reception of On the ice near a town has been shaped by its classification within Nicolaes Berchem’s winter landscapes. The painting’s depiction of a frozen city moat, skating figures, and a lime kiln foregrounds Berchem’s characteristic blend of genre and landscape, a formula that aligned with Dutch Golden Age tastes for anecdotal winter scenes.
Scholarship has debated the work’s status as a pendant to Winter view of Haarlem’s city wall, citing divergent provenances as evidence against their pairing. The Rijksmuseum’s attribution relies on the unclear signature “C.Berghem 1647,” which aligns with Berchem’s documented activity in Haarlem during the late 1640s. Provenance records place the painting in Amsterdam by 1809, acquired either via the Kabinet Van Heteren Gevers or the Jan Bernd Bicker sale, underscoring its integration into Dutch collecting circles.
Overview
Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, a prominent painter of the Dutch Golden Age, created On the ice near a town in 1647. Executed in oil paint, this landscape depicts a winter scene on a rocky shore, featuring various figures, animals, and a distant town. The artwork is part of the extensive collection housed at the Rijksmuseum.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem (1 October 1620 – 18 February 1683) was a highly esteemed and prolific Dutch Golden Age painter of pastoral landscapes, populated with mythological or biblical figures, but also of a number of allegories and…
