Hendrick Avercamp gen."de Stomme van Campen" - Buy or sell works

1585-1634

Hendrick Avercamp is considered the first representative of independent Dutch winter painting. His ice landscapes characterised the northern Dutch landscape during the Little Ice Age.

Avercamp was born in Amsterdam in 1585 and grew up in Kampen, a town on the River IJssel near the Zuiderzee. Presumed to be deaf-mute, Avercamp went down in art history under the nickname "de Stomme von Kampen" (the mute of Kampen). Around 1607, he returned to his native city of Amsterdam, where he received his artistic training from Pieter Isaacsz and probably also from the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo.

Winters such as that of 1608 were among the coldest in the history of the Netherlands. Alongside the horrors and hardships these harsh winters brought, the frozen rivers and bays also offered the people of the time scope for winter amusements. Regardless of class or origin, the Dutch were drawn to the ice, and a guild was even formed in Amsterdam to manufacture ice skates.

Having grown up on the Zuiderzee, Avercamp was familiar with the sight of winter ice landscapes from childhood.  In his pictures, he depicts this spectacular natural phenomenon and the joys of winter on the ice in great detail.

In 2009/2010, a retrospective was dedicated to the "Master of the Ice Scene" at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Many of his paintings can be found in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, the Stedelijk Museum Zwolle and Kampen and in the collection of the British Royal Family.