Winter landscape with figures playing on the ice

Frederik Marinus Kruseman stemmed from an important family of artists, whose members include both the history painter Cornelis Kruseman and the portrait painter Jan Adam Kruseman Jansz.. This cultural heritage was the driving force behind his artistic career. Kruseman started as an apprentice to the respected still-life painter Jan Reekers. His parents entrusted Reekers with their son because the artist had had a guiding hand in the tutelage of Kruseman's cousin Jan Adam, who at that time had been appointed Director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. After Reekers, Kruseman was apprenticed with Andreas Schelfhout's son-in-law, Nicolaas Roosenboom. Although the natural world and the practice of landscape painting played a central role in Kruseman's formation and style, his focus on winter scenes can be credited to his second tutor.

The present lot is a fine example of a winter scene, the artist's favourite landscape genre. Every small group of figures tells a story of its own. On the pond a small child is being pulled along in a sledge, another has fallen on the ice, having lost his hat in the process. A mother approaches in the background with two other children, whilst a man lights his pipe on the track between the frozen waterway and pond. A mansion to the right has smoke coming from the chimney, adding to the illustration of the cold winter landscape. All these anecdotal and architectural elements combine to make this composition appealing in its narration and harmonious in its rendition.