Ice skaters on the Amstel in Amsterdam

Across the icy surface of a frozen river, figures congregate, enjoy sleigh rides and kolf (an early form of golf, played on the ice), and wipe out in spectacular fashion. On either side of this lively scene stand buildings and wiry, leafless trees, and in the distance rises the city of Amsterdam. This recently discovered drawing is a new addition to the oeuvre of Hans Bol, one of the first artists of his generation to flee religious persecution in the Southern Netherlands and relocate to the North. Settling permanently in Amsterdam in 1586, Bol played an enormously important role in the development of naturalistic landscape in Holland, introducing to its burgeoning art market landscapes grounded in direct observation, emphatically local terrain, and quotidian motifs--the qualities that would set the course of Dutch landscape practice for years to come.

This work served as a preparatory drawing for a miniature in gouache on parchment now in the Residenz, Munich, but, as a signed and fully realized sheet, with an ample application of gray wash, it was probably also marketed by the artist as an autonomous, finished work in its own right. Dated 1589, it is one of the earliest ice skating scenes made in the Northern Netherlands, representing an important moment in the transmission of this Flemish pictorial tradition and initiating its development as a genre unto itself--one that would, in the hands of Hendrick Avercamp, David Vinckboons, Esaias van de Velde, Jan van Goyen, Aert van der Neer, and various other Dutch artists, flourish in paintings, prints, and drawings through the late seventeenth century.

As he often did in his works, Bol incorporated into this drawing a recognizable locale, in this case, Amsterdam, connecting it to a broader phenomenon of local landscape production that both reflected and reaffirmed specific regional and civic identities, precisely in the years the the Dutch Republic was establishing itself as an independent country.