Skating scene: figures on the ice near the walls of a town

Klaes Molenaer 1630 - 1676

Summary

This winter landscape, by the Haarlem painter Klaes Molenaer, shows that the ice is used as a normal thoroughfare in winter. Despite the freezing conditions, people carry on with everyday life: chatting, feeding animals and moving goods for sale. Not everyone is hard at work: our attention is drawn by their bright clothes to two figures in the foreground, who appear simply to have stopped to chat. A heavy sky suggests that more snow may be on the way. Klaes was the nephew of Jan Miense Molenaer (1610-1668), with whom he occasionally collaborated.