Wintergezichten, Utrecht, 1922
Hollandische Malerie aus berliner Privatbesitz, Berlin, 1984, no. 54, reproduced p. 111.
Johnny Van Haeften Limited, London, Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings, Catalogue no. 3, 1984, no. 26. 

Under a cloud-filled sky, a dozen or so warmly dressed country folk have gathered on a frozen waterway to enjoy some winter activities.  A child pushing a sledge and two skaters pass by on the ice.  A man sits on a log in the left foreground, and two others crouch down to tie on their skates: another prepares to move off with a sledge bearing his wife.  Over to the right, a group of villagers stands in a huddle chatting, while others hang around two boats stuck fast in the ice on the far bank.  Beyond is a cluster of cottages, farm buildings, a conical haystack and a church.  A light dusting of snow clings to the thatched roofs and puffs of smoke curl upwards in the cold air. 

Rombouts has succeeded admirably in capturing the atmosphere of an icy winter’s day using a fairly monochrome palette.  The landscape is executed almost solely in shades of grey, brown and ochre, with highlights in white, brushed in thick impasto, and cheerful accents of red, blue and yellow in the figures’ clothing. 

Information about the life of Salomon Rombouts is sparse.  The son of a painter, he was born in Haarlem in 1655, where he received at least part of his training from his father Gillis Rombouts, who died in 1672.  Salomon’s career as a master painter in Haarlem must have been somewhat brief since he left for Italy around 1680 and settled in Florence, marrying a local girl there in 1690.  Almost nothing of his life in Florence is known, but he is presumed to have died there sometime before 1702, when he was recorded as deceased in a document preserved in the archives of the Haarlem painters’ guild[i].

Salomon Rombouts left a small oeuvre comprising genre scenes, beach scenes and landscapes.  He was influenced by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-1682) and other artists active in Haarlem.  His winter landscapes, of which this is a particularly fine and characteristic example, belong to a long-established tradition in Haarlem.  A number of artists, who worked for all or part of their careers in Haarlem, made important contributions to the genre, including Esaias van de Velde (1587-1630), Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Isaac van Ostade (1621-1649), Salomon van Ruysdael (1600/03-1670), Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668) and Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1628-1682).

This example, which probably dates from around 1680/90, attests to the enduring appeal of the winter landscape.  Although such scenes were no doubt admired then as indeed they are today for their picturesque qualities, it should not be forgotten that severe winter weather was very much part of daily life in seventeenth-century Europe.  The Dutch Golden Age fell in the middle of a prolonged period of extremely cold winters and relatively cool summers.  Known as the Little Ice Age, it lasted from around the middle of the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, but within this period certain winters stood out on account of their particular severity.  Records show that many of the harshest winters of the seventeenth century fell in the third quarter and January 1684 may have been the coldest month ever in the Netherlands[ii].  A chronicler in Veurne wrote, “It was such a cold winter, and it froze as hard as had ever been seen in living memory.  Many cows and calves froze to death in their byres”[iii]. 

Another larger example of Rombouts’s winter landscapes is in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem[iv].

BIOGRAPHY

The son of the painter Gillis Salomonsz Rombouts (1631-1672) and his wife Martigen Govertsdr van Eyl, Salomon Gillisz Rombouts was baptised in Haarlem on 10 March 1655.  His parents, who were members of the Reformed Church, had married in nearby Spaarndam on 5 May 1652.  Salomon initially trained with his father, who died in February 1672, when Salomon was just seventeen years old.  It is not known with whom he completed his training, or the year in which he joined the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke.  On 21 April 1678, Salomon received 156 guilders from his parents’ estate.  At the time he was living in Amsterdam. 

Around 1680, Salomon travelled to Italy and was living in Florence in 1690.  In a notarial deed drawn up on 18 August 1690 concerning his upcoming marriage, his uncle Jacob Govertsz van Eyl and his cousin Govert Abrahamz van Eyle, both residing in Haarlem, testified that he had gone to Italy nine or ten years earlier as an unmarried young man, that he came from a ‘decent’ family and was of good character.  There is almost no information relating to his life in Florence.  It is not known precisely when he died, but his death must have occurred sometime before 25^th August 1702.  This can be deduced from an important document entitled Goede bekende Schilders naamen geschreeven door V. L. vd. Vinne en na zijn dood nagezien en bijgeschreeven door L. vd. Vinne (Names of well-known painters recorded by Vincent Laurensz van de Vinne and after his death checked and updated by Laurens van de Vinne), which is annotated with the letter ‘d’ (dead) after Salomon’s name.  Thus, Salomon must have died, perhaps in Italy, sometime before 25 August 1702, the date when his Haarlem colleague Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne (1628-1702) passed away[v].