Pieter Nolpe, etching winter view (1633-1653)

Winter view
“Lught, Ianuarius” – etching and engraving made by Pieter Nolpe between 1633 and 1653. Later colored by hand. Dimensions: 40.4 x 52.3 cm.
At the bottom of the margin a two-line verse in Dutch and in French:

“Hanght nu de nar, sijn bellen Aen, met d’ijsslee op de Vlught. Op Schaetsen rijdt, Wilt kolven gaen tis nu gesonde Lught”.

“Attelez aux traisneau les chevaux du carosse ca sonnettes au vent; ou prenze vos patins. Pour glissez sur la glace ainsi que du lutins Enfans il fait beau temps pour jouer à la crosse.”

The print comes from a series of different months, which also depict an element or season.
The month is January, air is one of the four elements as we characterize it in the West: fire, water, earth and air.
On the ice one entertains themselves with pumping, sledging and ice sailing. In an outstretch, people tie their irons under. We see a duck catcher with his loot, accompanied by his son and dog. A boy goes down. In the sleigh, ladies are well wrapped against the cold, the hands in a sleeve, a mask for the face, the horse that pulls the sled is richly decorated.

The Biographical Dictionary of the Netherlands (1868) and the History of Fatherland Painting (1816 – 1840) report on the artist:

Pieter Nolpe (Amsterdam ± 1613 – ± 1653) “on whose engraving the Hollansche School may also boast, was a contemporary and compatriot of Suiderhoef”. Nolpe “born in ‘s Hage, was an excellent engraver and distinguished himself by a fixed cut and a picturesque effect.”

“We only know this artist from his own works, which were made by him. The most important of these are eight large Prints, such as: a Veldgezigt, Strandgezigt, Winters-representations and a Koestal imagining from the inside: most of which, upholstered with sturdy sculptures and beasts, after the extensive paintings of P. Potter, are very artfully followed with the etching needle and the engraving iron.”

Look Boden gave the Dutch Golf Museum an uncoloured version.