It happened that the Dutch Golden Age coincided with some of the coldest years during the Little Ice Age. In the previous century, the pioneering Flemish landscape painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder recorded the snow and ice during those exceptionally cold winters.

Brueghel’s masterpiece Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap from 1565 is one of the first paintings to show Netherlandish people on the ice in the winter. Although a few similarly wintry views were painted in and around Antwerp, they didn’t really catch on until the middle of the following century. Among their earliest exponents in the Dutch Republic was Hendrick Avercamp, who was born in Amsterdam but painted for most of his career in Kampen, to the north-east, and was probably the first to specialise in winter landscapes.

Avercamp’s Winter Landscape with Skaters is seen in his 1608 version above, and from around 1630 below. The whole population seems to have spilled out from the warmth of buildings to take to the ice. The fashionable parade in their best clothes and company, children play, and the occasional less able skater ends up sitting on the ice.

His Winter Scene on a Canal from about 1615 is even richer in detail. In the right of the painting are two tents with flags flying. These are popular koek-en-zopie, literally ‘cake and eggnog’ cafés, selling handheld snacks like cake and pancakes, together with alcoholic drinks such as beer laced with home-made rum.

Avercamp’s Kolf Players on Ice from 1625 features another common sight, the game of kolf, an ancestor of modern golf that became popular in the Netherlands during the thirteenth century, and has all but vanished today. Although also played indoors, it was played widely on frozen bodies of water during these cold winters. This involved striking a ball around a simple course with a club, with the aim of reaching the opponents’ starting point first. In this painting, the player about to strike their ball might be aiming for the post being held in the distance.

Adriaen van de Venne’s early painting of The Winter from 1614 shows two ice yachts under full sail, and dense crowds in the distance.

Although Aelbert Cuyp doesn’t appear to have painted many of these, his Ice Scene Before the Huis te Merwede near Dordrecht from about 1655 is among the finest. Notable here are his foreground reflections on the mirror-like surface, and the wonderful sky with its warm clouds. The castle seen here was built to the south-east of Dordrecht in the early fourteenth century, and ruined a hundred years later.

Skating on the ice using long curved blades of wood or metal, seen on the shoes of the man in the left foreground, was also popular. Younger adults made it a sport, and there were long-distance races.

Aert van der Neer’s beautifully-lit Sports on a Frozen River (c 1660) includes several kolf players. The reflection of the low sun on the ice is particularly well shown here, giving the ice a polished sheen.

Van der Neer was another specialist in painting these views. These contrasting Winter Landscapes show his command of light and skies in his mature works. That above dates from about 1660, and that below from about 1665-70.

Adriaen van de Velde’s Kolf Players on the Ice near Haarlem (1668) affords a closer view of a game in progress, with a koek-en-zopie tent in the distance, ready to warm the players up.