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1 of 253523 objects
A couple skating watched by a lady and gentleman c.1620
Brush drawing in black and grey wash over graphite with some pen and brown ink | 12.8 x 13.8 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 906486

Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634)
A couple skating watched by a lady and gentleman c.1620
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A drawing of an elegantly dressed couple, standing on the right, both wearing wide-brimmed hats. On the left a young man with a pole over his shoulder skates behind a girl in a diadem cap and a farthingale. In the background further figures skate on the ice. RL 6465-6513 amount to nearly one third of Avercamp's known drawings and represent the largest holding in one collection. They cover all categories of his drawings- studies of single figures, and groups, genre scenes and landscapes- and illustrate his considerable variety in finish and technique. In general the artist did not make preparatory drawings. They seem to have been made for their own sake, and some of the more finished coloured sheets were probably sold. The remainder served as a vocabulary of human behaviour as for the most part seen in the provincial town of Kampen.
Provenance
First recorded in a Royal Collection inventory of c.1810 (Inv. A, p. 118: '42. Drawings of some Master in the Stile of Breughel, representing the Diversions of the Dutch and Flemish on the Ice &c: with some Drawings of single figures for the Dresses only').
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Creator(s)
Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Brush drawing in black and grey wash over graphite with some pen and brown ink
Measurements
12.8 x 13.8 cm (sheet of paper)
Category
Object type(s)