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Terms and conditions of use
Winter landscape
(c. 1655)
Medium
oil on wood panel
Measurements
36.2 × 32.5 cm
Credit Line
Bequest of Robert Victor Jones, 2026
© Public Domain
Gallery location
17th Century & Flemish Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
Philips Wouwerman’s early biographer Arnold Houbraken wrote around 1720 of his skill ‘in the artful division of light objects against brown ones, and again with brown against white … And as far as his brush handling is concerned, it is melting, fat and dabbed’. These qualities are evident in this mature study of a cold winter’s day, one of a dozen winter paintings known to be by Wouwerman. In this scene, a group of men prepare for a hunt, one of them chopping a stake; while skaters glide happily across ice at the far left. The dramatic lowering, scudding clouds are evidence of Wouwerman’s mastery of silvery tones.