+ Expand

Artist or Maker: Charles Leickert (Dutch, 1818-1907)

+ Expand

Provenance: Anonymous sale, Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 18 April 1950, lot 204. Anonymous sale, Phillips, London, 18 November 1997, lot 46.
W.H. Patterson & Sons, London.

+ Expand

Notes: Christie’s charges a premium to the buyer on the Hammer Price of each lot sold at the following rates: 29.75% of the Hammer Price of each lot up to and including €5,000, plus 23.8% of the Hammer Price between €5,001 and €400,000, plus 14.28% of any amount in excess of €400,000. Buyer’s premium is calculated on the basis of each lot individually.
Although he was born in Brussels, Charles Leickert worked in Holland for most of his life. His family moved to The Hague in 1826 when Leickert was making preparations for his studies at the The Hague Drawing Academy where he started following classes in 1827. At the Academy his most important teacher was Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove (1790-1880). Leickert quickly befriended fellow artists such as Anthony Waldorp (1803-1866), Johannes Franciscus Hoppenbrouwers (1819-1866), Salomon Verveer (1813-1876) and Wynandus Nuyen (1813-1839). Despite the death of his father and the resulting shortage of funds, Leickert's mother insisted that her son continued his education and convinced the board of the Academy that the young Charles deserved a scholarship for drawing lessons.

In the late 1830's Leickert joined the studio of his friend Wijnand Nuyen and around 1839 he started work at the studio of the renowned landscape painter Andreas Schelfhout (1787-1870). At Schelfhout's studio he made rapid progress, specialising in winter landscapes: the genre that had made his teacher famous. Leickert would become one of the best known of Schelfhout's pupils and a prominent painter in his own time. In a review of an exhibition in 1844 it was noted that Leickert followed in the footsteps of his much-admired teacher. An art critic wrote: '... Mr C. Leickert, of The Hague, demonstrates with his winter scene [...] that he has turned this lessons of his master to good use...'.

In 1847 Leickert was present at the founding of the Pulchri Studio in The Hague and became a regular member of the artists' society Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam. In 1848 he settled in Amsterdam, where he painted the present lot in 1881. At that time, Leickert and his wife lived in a house by the Vondelpark with a wonderful view of the park. During this period he managed to distance himself from the school of Schelfhout and found his very own style. Although his paintings were produced in the studio, they were based on numerous sketches after nature which he ultimately idealised.

The present large painting shows numerous villagers and several windmills in a representative Dutch winter scene. There is an exciting tension in the painting, due to the combination of heavy clouds in a bright afternoon setting. On their day off, many villagers gather around the 'koek and zopie' stand, where they could buy warm alcoholic drinks to increase their skating pleasure. The ice was not only used for pleasure, as can be seen on the right of the composition, where the ice is being used to transport goods. It is these delicately composed winter landscapes which capture the archetypal atmosphere of a Dutch winter's day so accurately, that gave him a high standing reputation in his time and today.