A treasure rescued from the storeroom.

I mentioned earlier that on that fortunate day, 18th October, I found a second artwork among the stalls at Portobello Road Market, just 50 meters away from the place where I work. Today I will talk about that painting. 

The artwork is undated and untitled. If I had to give it one, it would be ‘Winter landscape with figures skating on a frozen river’. This time the picture found is a Dutch School oil painting on wood panel, signed by Gabris in the lower right corner. Its dimensions are 40,5 x  30,5 cm.

The picture dates from the 20th century, painted in the style and technique of 19th-century Dutch frozen canal scenes. More specifically, it is in the style of artist Charles Leickert (1816-1907), although the artwork is absolutely original. There is no evidence of any painting by Leickert or any other Dutch artist that matches this work, apart from containing common elements in such scenes. This oil painting is free from any previous restoration or damage, and is in excellent condition.

A leisure scene prior to the storm.

 

This particular picture depicts a Period Dutch romantic Frozen Winter landscape scene in the Low Countries, probably Holland. The image portrays a number of native ice skaters on a frozen river or canal. For some villagers it is leisure time whilst other in the foreground is using the ice to transport goods. In Holland, skating was not considered merely as an amusement, as in winter the numerous canals of the country often allow a means of communication faster and more pleasant than the roads.

 

Essential characteristics of the Dutch countryside are the windmill depicted in the middle ground, and some old period buildings that can be seen throughout the composition, depicted with great attention to detail. In the distance, a barge moored by the river appears to be stuck on the ice. Just in front of the mill a refreshment stall (’koek en zopie’ in Dutch) can be seen on the ice, sheltered from wind and with the Dutch flag. Refreshment stalls on the ice sold cakes, cookies, and hot alcoholic beverages. These stalls were on the ice and not on the land to avoid being taxed on their products.

 

The autor has accurately depicted the ice with all the scratches made by the skaters and sleighs on its surface. A very low horizon allows the painter to recreate himself in the stormy sky, skilfully depicted, with variations of tones between the whites and greys of the dark clouds in the distance and the blue of the clear sky, allowing an area of the composition to be more illuminated, enhancing the whiteness of the snow. The blue and grey hues in the dominating sky enhance the sense of coldness due to the winter conditions and witness the persistent interest of Dutch artists in nature and its atmospheric effects in Holland.

Interestingly, the picture did not travel to London from the Netherlands, but from a much closer location. The painting was actually produced in the studio of artists J. J. & T. I. Gabris in Surrey (The Tudor, 49, Haling Park Road, CR2 6ND South Croydon), probably in the 1980s. John Joseph Gabris specialised in classical still lifes, although he also painted winter landscapes. Actually, our painting is by his wife, Tekla I. Gabris. There is no doubt that her artistic productions have more technical and artistic quality than those by her husband, from whom she adopted the surname, Gabris. Tekla produced artworks in the style of the Dutch masters. Many of her paintings were executed in oil on wood panel, and others in oil on canvas, but her compositions are all original. Occasionally, some of them find their way into auction houses. One of her auctioned artworks is an interior scene with figures, painted in oil on panel. The artist's signature is identical to that of our painting, and the framing is in the same style as when I acquired it.

Interior scene with figures, by Tekla I. Gabris.

 

Another artwork by this female artist is a Dutch-style winter landscape with a windmill and figures, whose signature is exactly the same as the one on our painting. 

Snowy landscape with mill and figures, oil on canvas by Tekla I. Gabris.

Coming back to our oil on panel, its references are clearly Charles Leickert and the Dutch love for winter landscape scenes of daily life. Charles Henri Joseph Leickert (1816-1907) was a Belgian artist from The Hague School, author of Dutch Romantic landscapes. Leickert is set in a context of great artistic development in the Netherlands, most of his work was made in The Hague and Amsterdam. He learned the art of landscape painters such as Andreas Schelfhout, who probably inspired him in his painting of landscapes and winter scenes.

Andreas Schelfhout (1787-1870) was a Dutch romantic artist whose scenes of Dutch winter with icy canals and skaters made him very popular during the 19th century. Excellent technique, sense of composition and a natural use of color characterize his painting. Schelfhout used to paint in his studio with the help of sketches that he used to make outdoors.

 

This kind of winter depictions begins in the 16th and 17th centuries (The Dutch Golden Age: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Aert van der Neer, Jan van Goyen, Jacop van Ruisdale). Dutch Landscape was characterised by heavenly cloud formations, flat planes of fields and lakes, and a beautiful realism offset by an earthy and natural colour palette.

The landscapes that Pieter Brueguel the Elder painted in the winter of 1565, such as Hunters in the Snow, testify to the harshness of winters during the Little Ice Age.

Winter Landscape with a Bird trap (1565), by Pieter Brueghel the Younger shows a village scene where people skate on a frozen river.

 

The period between 1550 and 1850 was marked by extraordinarily cold winters and relatively cool summers. In the meteorological history of Northwestern Europe it is known as the Little Ice Age. The Dutch Golden Age fell in the middle of this period.

 

A painting in the 17th and 18th century Dutch genre tradition.

 

Winter compositions were a very common subject in the Dutch tradition. Both the Wallace Collection and the National Gallery in London have an outstanding collection of Dutch art, and both museums are a great place to learn more about this tradition.

 

There I could learn that Dutch Republic in the 17th century witnessed one of the most powerfully creative periods in Western art. In the late 16th century, the predominantly Protestant northern Netherlands declared itself independent from Catholic Spanish rule. A new art was born, and artists increasingly produced Works not on commission but for a speculative market determined by the demands of a new class of prosperous citizens.

 

Pictures of traditional biblical and historical subjects (often called ‘history paintings’) persisted in the Republic. They were especially important for Rembrandt and his followers. Yet, increasingly these had to share the stage with several newly independent artistic genres (landscape, still life, portraiture and scenes of domestic life), which had been pioneered by Flemish artists who had fled to the northern Netherlands to escape persecution by the Catholic authorities.

 

Landscape has always played a vital role in painting, but until the 16th century this was almost exclusively as the backdrop for biblical or mythological subjects. It was in 16th-century Flanders that landscape evolved into an independent genre. Flemish immigrant artists introduced these recent developments to the fledgling Dutch Republic. It is thus that a country characterised by an ostensibly uninspiring flat landscape produced some ot the greatest landscape painters in Western art. 

 

Recognising the importance of land and wáter to the country’s considerable wealth, Dutch landscape painters proudly depicted their native surroundings in compositions that look convincing and indeed often find their origin in drawn studies  made directly after nature. Most of them, however, were invented in the artist’s studio. 17th-century Dutch pictures are often called ‘realistic’, but these seemingly lifelike scenes owe as much to the inventive skills of their painters as any history painting.

Hendrick Avercamp.

Pieter Brueghel the Younger.

The seventeenth century was the ‘Golden Age’ of Dutch landscape painting. Dutch painters found a particular beauty in the low horizons, unremarkable vegetation and luminous skies of their native landscape. Their sensitive depiction of the daily lives of ordinary people, and of the changing light at different times of day and in different seasons, has rarely been surpassed.

 

Dutch artists tended to specialise in a particular type of landscape, some painting frozen winter scenes, such as Hendrick Avercamp, or maritime seascapes, such as Ludolf Backhuysen. The finest landscape painters were the van Ruisdaels, Salomon and his more talented nephew Jacob, who painted the cloud-shadowed rivers, fields and dunes around Haarlem. Hendrick Barentsz Avercamp was a non-verbal (and probably deaf) artist known as 'the Mute of Kampen' (de stom van Campen). 

 

Avercamp, who combined the Dutch love of landscape with scenes of daily life, was among the first European artists to specialize in depictions of winter. His paintings must have appealed to Dutch patriots as representing the landscape and life of the newly formed Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Despite his disability, Avercamp had a successful and independent career as a painter of popular winter scenes.

 

Avercamp was born in Amsterdam, and trained there probably with Pieter Isaacsz. His manner was based in the first place on that of the Flemish followers of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He presumably came into contact with one of Bruegel's followers who had settled in Amsterdam, such as David Vinckboons. His nephew Barent Avercamp (1621-79) imitated his style of painting. Others followed his approach, for example, Arent Arentsz. His carefully characterised groups of small figures are drawn together in the paintings through subtly graduated colour. His pictures were composed in the studio from acutely observed watercolour drawings.

 

The 19th-century Dutch romantics in London.

How and when did this interest in these Dutch frozen canal scenes arise in Britain? We have already mentioned in this article that the Wallace Collection houses an interesting collection of artworks, as does the National Gallery in London, although probably a more recent exhibition at the Dennis Vanderkar Gallery in London also had something to do with it. It took place in 1962 and featured paintings by Charles Henri Joseph Leickert and other artists such as Andreas Schelfhout, B C Koekkoek, Cornelius Springer, M A Koekkoek and Hubertus Van Hove (Dutch Exhibition Pictures at the Dennis Vanderkar Gallery, London. The Illustrated London News, June1962).

 

In the next post I will talk about another amazing picture I found in a London charity, coming home from work, and which transported me to one of the most exciting episodes in the history of Western art: The artists' colonies.