25 February 2020

Sebastiaen Vrancx. Allegory of Winter, ca. 1608 (private collection).


Oil on oak: 52 x 66 cm. Auctioned at Sotheby’s London, December 2014. This picture belongs to a series of four panels representing the seasons. In the foreground are the staples of a winter diet: red and white cabbage, carrots, sugar beet and sausages, as well as the household items like a copper warming pan and firewood. The waffle iron and the mask with the red costume on the floor probably serving as a reminder of Carnival, the feast which signals the end of the darker months and the beginning of Spring. 

More > Sebastiaen Vrancx at Wikipedia.

7 February 2020

5 February 2020

Frits Thaulow. Thawing Ice, ca. 1887 (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow).


Pastel on canvas: 59.5 х 80 cm. Known as: ‘Winter Landscape’, ‘Thawning Ice’ and ‘Mountain River’. Painted from a spot near Grini farm/ Oslo where the artist was living in 1887. It was an immediate success, and about 11 pastel versions were made. Other versions in private collections and at: Nationalmuseum Stockholm, Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde Stockholm and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Visit > Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.
More > Frits Thaulow at Wikipedia.