A Frozen River near a Village, with Golfers and Skaters

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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Notes

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The game of golf was played in the Middle Ages, but it became particularly popular in seventeenth-century Holland. It was called kolf, and was played on the ice. European winters in the mid-seventeenth century were severe. Rivers and canals froze so solid that the life normally lived in a village moved out onto them. Van der Neer has shown his villagers at play. The man about to strike the ball with his long club is brightly lit. Perhaps a little chilly in his fashionable clothes, he stands out in his white shirt sleeves and kolfer’s stance. The little village is painted with affectionate detail. Outlines are crisp with a dusting of snow and each branch of the leafless trees is silhouetted against mounting clouds. Van der Neer imagined his landscape, but would have known the buildings and painted them from drawings.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

A Frozen River near a Village, with Golfers and Skaters

Date

about 1648

Medium

Oil on canvas

Measurements

H 39.5 x W 53 cm

Accession number

NG1288

Acquisition method

Bequeathed by John Staniforth Beckett, 1889

Work type

Painting

Normally on display at

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

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