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Notes
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The game of golf was played in the Middle Ages, but it became particularly popular in seventeenth-century Holland. It was called kolf, and was played on the ice. European winters in the mid-seventeenth century were severe. Rivers and canals froze so solid that the life normally lived in a village moved out onto them. Van der Neer has shown his villagers at play. The man about to strike the ball with his long club is brightly lit. Perhaps a little chilly in his fashionable clothes, he stands out in his white shirt sleeves and kolfer’s stance. The little village is painted with affectionate detail. Outlines are crisp with a dusting of snow and each branch of the leafless trees is silhouetted against mounting clouds. Van der Neer imagined his landscape, but would have known the buildings and painted them from drawings.
Title
A Frozen River near a Village, with Golfers and Skaters
Date
about 1648
Medium
Oil on canvas
Measurements
H 39.5 x W 53 cm
Accession number
NG1288
Acquisition method
Bequeathed by John Staniforth Beckett, 1889
Work type
Painting
The National Gallery, London
Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England
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