JAN VAN GOYEN (Leiden 1596-1656 The Hague) Winter landscape with ice skaters. Oil on wood. Monogrammed on the left below the church wall: VG. 34.6 × 52.5 cm. Expertise: - Dr Curt Benedict, 20.1.1949 (copy available). - Pierre Lamy, 23 Jan. 1953 (copy available). - Dr Fritz Duparc, 2020 (copy available). Provenance: - Probably Dr Curt Benedict & Co, Berlin, 1949. - Kunsthandel Aymonier tableaux et dessins anciens, Paris, 1956 (with remnants of a label on verso). - In French private collection since 1956 through acquisition of the above. - By inheritance, private collection. Exhibition: Mulhouse 1959, Exposition des collections privées de Mulhouse et de sa Région, 23.6.-1.9.1959, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Mulhouse. Jan van Goyen was one of the most outstanding and influential Dutch landscape painters of the 17th century. Van Goyen, who received his artistic training under Esaias van de Velde (1587-1630), one of the pioneers of Dutch landscape painting in the Golden Age, created more than 35 winter landscapes known to us at the beginning of his career in the early 1620s. Van Goyen's landscape painting, initially still strongly influenced by the painting of his teacher van de Velde, gradually developed over the course of his artistic career into his own, typically van Goyenian, monochrome, so-called tonal landscape painting in brown tones. As Dr Fritz Duparc explains in his 2020 report, the present painting is a good example of van Goyen's landscape painting of the 1620s. With careful yet lively and swift brushwork, van Goyen is able to vividly depict the bustling activity of numerous figures on the frozen river that runs through the right half of the picture. The building with an onion dome on the left and the farmhouses with a wooden bridge in the middle ground on the right are typical recurring elements in van Goyen's landscape paintings between 1624 and 1628, which is why it seems plausible to date our painting to around 1626. Van Goyen's depiction of the bare trees in the painting seems to have been taken directly from the works of his teacher van de Velde and illustrates the artistic affinity between the two Dutch masters. This object marked with * (asterisk) is fully subject to VAT, i.e. VAT will be charged on the hammer price plus buyer's premium. Buyers who present a legally stamped export declaration will be reimbursed the VAT.