Winter Landscape with a Duck Hunter with Game in his Belt and his Gun over his Shoulder on the Bank of a Frozen River

c. 1625 - c. 1630

Object data

point of brush and grey ink, pen and brown ink, with watercolour and opaque white, over traces of graphite (?); framing line in dark brown ink, with gold-coloured border

height 153 mm × width 192 mm

Inscriptions

monogrammed: lower right, in brown ink, HA
inscribed on verso: lower centre, in brown ink, illegible; above that, in pencil, 16
stamped on verso: upper centre, the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: Arms of Burgundy-Austria; similar to Laurentius, I, no. 164a (The Hague, 1618)

Provenance

…; donated by Jonkvrouwe Agnes Henriette Beels van Heemstede-van Loon (1829-1902), Amsterdam, to the museum (L. 2228), 1898

Object number: RP-T-1898-A-3738

Credit line: Gift of A.H. Beels van Heemstede-van Loon

The artist

Hendrick Avercamp (Amsterdam 1585 – Kampen 1634)

The eldest son of the apothecary Barent Hendricksz Avercamp (1557-1602) and Beatrix Peters Vekemans (c. 1563-1633), he was baptized in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam on 27 January 1585.¹ In 1586 his father became the town apothecary of Kampen, and the family moved there. Hendrick has long been assumed to have been deaf and mute from birth, since he was commonly known as ‘de Stom’ or ‘de Stomme’ (‘the Mute’). Because one of the buyers at the 1607 studio sale of Pieter Isaacsz (1568-1625) in Amsterdam is mentioned as ‘de stom tot Pieter Isacqs’ (‘the mute at Pieter Isaacz’s’),² it is thought that Avercamp was sent to Amsterdam to live and study with the history and portrait painter Pieter Isaacsz, who returned to his native Denmark in that year. By January 1613, but probably earlier, Avercamp must have returned to Kampen, where he remained for the rest of his life. Shortly before his mother died, she expressed in her will her concern about her unmarried eldest son, Hendrick, who she called ‘stom en miserable’ (‘mute and wretched’).³ Hendrick was buried on 15 May 1634 in the Bovenkerk (or St Nicolaaskerk) in Kampen.⁴

Avercamp painted and drew mainly winter scenes, which in the seventeenth century were called ‘wintertjes’. His early paintings, executed in 1608 and 1609, show the influence of Flemish landscape painters, such as Hans Bol (1534-1593), Gillis van Coninxloo (1544-1607) and David Vinckboons I (1576-1631/33), and a strong interest in narrative details in the tradition of Pieter Bruegel I (c. 1528-1569). The Flemish influence became less noticeable in his later works, with the horizon lines being lower and the perspective more natural. Although best known for his winter landscape paintings, he also drew and painted some summer and river landscapes.

Hendrick Avercamp was a prolific draughtsman, who worked mostly in pen, chalk and watercolour, creating figure studies that were recycled repeatedly in his paintings, as well as fully worked-out drawings as detailed as his paintings. The latter works were probably intended for sale. Paintings by artists such as Arent Arentsz (1585/86-1631), Adam van Breen (c. 1585-after 1642), Antonie Verstralen (c. 1594-1641) and Hendrick’s nephew Barent Avercamp (1612/13-1679) strongly resemble his work, but it is unclear whether those artists were taught by him or simply imitated his work.

Jan-Piet Filedt Kok, 2007

REFERENCES
E. Bénézit, ‘Hendrick Avercamp’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, II (1908), pp. 276-77; C.J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Zwolle 1933, pp. 33-71; C.J. Welcker and D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Doornspijk 1979, pp. 33-71; A. Blankert, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), Barent Avercamp (1612-1679): Frozen Silence: Paintings from Museums and Private Collections, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Waterman Gallery)/Zwolle (Provinciehuis Overijssel) 1982-83, pp. 15-36; D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, ‘Hendrick Avercamp’, in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, 94 vols., Munich 1992-, V (1992), pp. 728-29; D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, ‘Avercamp Family’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, II, pp. 854-55; J. Bikker, ‘Hendrick Avercamp: “The Mute of Kampen”, in P. Roelofs et al., Hendrick Avercamp: Master of the Ice Scene, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 2009-10, pp. 11-21

Entry

This is one of the best preserved of Avercamp’s coloured drawings in the collection of the Rijksprentenkabinet. In its meticulous technique and subtle use of colour, it is very close to his winter scenes from the latter half of the 1620s.

The foreground with the hunter and his rather podgy dog, which is looking up at him, is almost identical to that in a small painting (19 x 26 cm) that was on the London art market in 1992,⁵ and later with the London dealer Johnny van Haeften. A companion to that painting, though slightly larger in format (21 x 31.3 cm) in a private collection, also formerly with Van Haeften, shows a near identical composition but with the duck hunter kneeling and taking aim at his target, his dog (in the same pose) now behind him.⁶ A even larger, signed version of the latter (33 x 52 cm), was on the London art market in 1965 and later with P. de Boer, Amsterdam.⁷ Like the museum’s watercolour composition Winter Landscape with a Woman and a Youth on a Small Bridge, Skaters and a Gallows in the Distance (inv. no. RP-T-1898-A-3739), Avercamp’s composition of the Winter Landscape with a Duck Hunter Shooting was copied by his follower Arent Arentsz, called Cabel (1585/86-1631, in a picture likewise in the Harold Samuel Collection, Mansion House, London.⁸

The motif of the standing hunter and dog reappear in the left foreground of a Winter Scene, a painting that since 2009 has been in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (inv. no. M.2009.106.23), with the hunter reversed left for right.⁹ He is also found, minus his dog, in a painting currently on loan from a private collection to the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. SK-C-1705), where he is in almost the same pose, but with his head turned further to the left.¹⁰ The same figure, in reverse, features in a drawing by Avercamp in the album amicorum of Ernest Brinck (c. 1582-1649) in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague (shelfmark 133 M 86, fol. 247v).¹¹

The figure in the drawing appears to be based on the same model as the man in the museum’s Study of a Standing Duck Hunter, Leaning on his Gun (inv. no. RP-T-1886-A-684).

Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998/Jane Shoaf Turner, 2020

Literature

Hollandsche winters. Teekeningen uit de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1917, no. 5 (?); C.J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Zwolle 1933, no. T 18; J.Q. van Regteren Altena, Holländische Meisterzeichnungen des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts, Basel 1948, no. 8; M.F. Hennus, ‘Hendrick Avercamp als tekenaar’, Maandblad voor beeldende kunsten 25 (1949), no. 2, p. 6 (repr.); A.B. Wigman, Halali. Cultuurhistorische notities van Wild en Weidwerk. 31 tekeningen van de middeleeuwen tot heden, Utrecht n.d. [1963], no. 7; C.J. Welcker and D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Doornspijk 1979, no. T 18; P. Sutton et al., Masters of 17th-century Dutch Landscape Painting, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Philadelphia (Museum of Art) 1987-88, p. 261, under no. 7; P. C. Sutton, Dutch & Flemish Seventeenth-century Paintings: The Harold Samuel Collection, Cambridge 1992, pp. 68-69, under no. 4 (n. 9); M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, no. 13; P. Roelofs et al., Hendrick Avercamp: Master of the Ice Scene, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art), 2009-10, p. 105 (fig. 130)

Citation

M. Schapelhouman, 1998/J. Shoaf Turner, 2020, 'Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape with a Duck Hunter with Game in his Belt and his Gun over his Shoulder on the Bank of a Frozen River, c. 1625 - c. 1630', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.27148

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