Winter scene with a sledge in the foreground and figures gathering round a tent on...

This is a late work by Van Goyen, painted three years before his death. The artist, who was born in Leiden, but from c. 1632 worked chiefly in The Hague, was one of the leading exponents of the ‘tonal' phase of Dutch landscape painting, dating from the late 1620s or 1630s. In these works, variegated local colours and individual details were subordinated to a monochromatic colour scheme and broad handling in order to treat the landscape as a whole, giving it a unified atmosphere. By the 1650s, the relaxed mood of Van Goyen's earlier winter scenes had changed to one of bleakness and figures had become anonymous strugglers against the elements. Here the restricted palette of browns, greys and creams conveys well the icy chill of a winter afternoon, with pale yellowish light breaking through ominously heavy clouds and reflections glinting in the ice. The effect of veiled, shifting cloud is suggested by the use of thin paint, allowing the ground (base paint layer) to show through. These inexpensive colours could be mixed quickly and applied while the other paint layers were still wet, creating visible brushstrokes, as seen here in the sky. This lent the works an air of having perhaps been painted outdoors, but although van Goyen sketched in the open air, he painted in his studio. The figures muffled against the cold are engaged in fishing and trading, their bustling activity contrasting with the cold, still, bleak landscape.