Winterlandschaft bei Amsterdam

It is biting cold. Even the air appears to be frozen,

marked by broad brushstrokes in blue and gray.1 A

man in a green cap clasps his arms around his body.

A woman in gray emphatically touches his arm.

She carries a basket, as does the man in patched

trousers to the right. A boy huddles at his side,

chunks of snow covering his shoes. Their reddened

noses and open mouths almost audibly conjure the

sound of clattering teeth. How they must envy the

company riding in the sleigh, where even the driver

wears a thick fur coat!

The sleigh is rushing down the slope rather

speedily, as track marks in the snow suggest.

Apparently coming from Haarlem, with the earthwork

at the left being the Haarlem dike,2 the sleigh

is heading toward Amsterdam. The city is seen from

the west, with its harbor, mills, and city walls relating

to topographic prints (fig. 1). Yet Jacob Savery I

(1565/67–1603), an Amsterdam citizen (poorter) since

September 15, 1591,3 took some liberties in rendering

the city’s profile: the Oude Kerk, left, has the shape

of Haarlem’s Sint Bavo, and the Nieuwe Kerk in the

center is obscured by a tower and a stepped gable

roof, probably belonging to a stately home.

Amsterdam imagery is also found on the sleigh,

which bears the three crosses of the city’s coat of

arms.4 There is more heraldry as well: a lion and two

crossed anchors (fig. 2), likely belonging to the house

of Dirks, called Admiraal, of Hoorn,5 Westfriesland,

across the IJsselmeer. Could a member of the family

have commissioned the present drawing? It surely

was made as an independent artwork,6 its brilliant

colors and miniaturist handling befitting the taste

of sophisticated connoisseurs.

In this late work on paper, Savery tried some compositional

innovations. One was to lower the viewpoint,

7 to the effect that it draws the viewer closer

to the figures, offering an empathic approach that

perfectly suits the subject. From about 1565 to 1685,

Europe was struck by the so-called Little Ice Age,8

a period of harsh winters, the average temperature

dropping about two degrees Celsius.9 When the

drawing was made, nature and its inhabitants had

already suffered from a generation-long chill. With

even the trees blue with the cold, the drawing

masterfully visualizes this experience. Artfully

entwined branches remind us of enchanted thorn

hedges; bizarre trunks resemble the heads of turtle

and stag: all evoke eternal winter, a frozen world

awaiting revival. Only the birds in the sky and the

people on the ground do their best to break the spell

by animating the barren landscape.

 

1. See Spicer-Durham in Bisanz-Prakken and Schröder 2009, 42.

2. Spicer-Durham in Bisanz-Prakken and Schröder 2009, 40.

3. Bauer H. 2012, 20, 22.

4. Already noted by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot in his

unpublished excerpt on the drawing, now at the Rijksbureau

voor Kunstdocumentatie, The Hague; rkd.nl/explore/excerpts

/476882.

5. Cf. cbgfamiliewapens.nl/zoeken?view=detail&id

=0c95c511-9153-4505-bb29-1739c0c33d4c; De Nederlandsche

Leeuw 40 (1922), col. 385–86, knggw.nl/wp-content/leeuw

/1922-201-218.pdf.

6. The “signature,” though, was apparently added later. First,

it was written in an ink slightly darker and different from that

used in the drawing, as has been confirmed by the Albertina’s

conservator, Karine Bovagnet; email to the author, September

22, 2021. Second, the spelling is somewhat unusual, as was

already observed by Spicer-Durham, who, nonetheless, voted

for its authenticity; see Bisanz-Prakken and Schröder 2009,

43n1. So, too, did Hans Mielke in Winner 1975, 156. Third, the

signature does not fully fit in the fence, its last two letters

overlapping the pale, supporting doubts that were already

expressed by Gerszi 1965, 103n30.

7. See Spicer-Durham in Bisanz-Prakken and Schröder 2009,

42–43.

8. This context has already been mentioned by Spicer-Durham

in Bisanz-Prakken and Schröder 2009, 42.

9. An overview on this climate phenomenon with its various

cultural impacts is given by Blom 2019.

 

Emily J. Peters, Laura M. Ritter (Hg.), AK Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, Cleveland Museum of Art 9.10.2022 - 8.1.2023, New Haven 2022, Kat. Nr. 14