A game of kolf by the castle

Look closer

7 details, each checked against a close-up of the picture.

1. Foreground Skating Group

   A skater in a gold-ochre coat glides toward the right, followed by figures in dark brown and gray garments.

   The crop centers on a skater in a luminous gold-ochre coat, bent forward and gripping a kolf stick aimed at a small ball on the ice, his dark breeches and boots anchoring the warm torso. To the right stands a group of dark-clad figures, one seen from the back in a black coat with a fur-trimmed collar, a child in muted green tucked between the adults. Upper left shows a small cluster of distant figures in dark brown and gray with a tiny dog and a wash of red flag. The ice reads as thin, scumbled warm grays and browns with horizontal striations, while the figures' edges are softened against the pale ground.

2. Red-Clad Figure

   A small figure wearing a bright red cloak stands out against the pale blue-gray ice.

   The crop isolates a hooded figure swathed in a saturated red cloak against a desaturated, cool blue-gray ground. The red reads as the highest chroma note in the frame, applied with what appears to be a fairly thick, opaque pass that retains brush texture along the curved edge of the hood and cloak hem. Inside the hood, a small dark face is indicated with a few quick strokes of dark brown and a pale dab for the cheek/forehead, the edges softened rather than tightly drawn. The surrounding ice and background reeds are handled with thin, dragged, broken strokes in ochre, gray, and pale blue, allowing the panel/silk ground to show through in many places, which makes the solid red mass read as a dense, opaque shape in contrast.

3. Tent and Flags

   A low domed tent in terracotta and pinkish orange, with a cream highlight along its ridge, stands beside a pole with two pennants, one coral red and one dark green, near a small windmill.

   The crop centers on a small windmill with X-shaped sail arms rendered in thin, brownish-ochre strokes that fuse into the pale peach sky. Two pennants hang from a thin pole at the upper left: a coral-red flag on top and a dark moss-green flag below, their tattered ends trailing rightward. To the right sits a low domed tent, painted with quick strokes of terracotta and pinkish-orange punctuated by a cream-white highlight along its ridge. A small dark staffage figure stands at the lower center against the tent's base. The entire surface is crossed by a fine web of craquelure, and edges between forms are softened rather than crisp.

4. Horizon Glow

   The horizon line features a warm, creamy yellowish light that contrasts with the cool blue sky above.

   The crop isolates the upper sky band and the distant horizon, where a narrow strip of warm creamy-peach pigment sits just above a faintly indicated landmass. Above this warm band the paint shifts into cool blue-grays, with the transition achieved through soft wet-into-wet blending rather than a hard edge. A pervasive web of craquelure runs across the entire surface, and thin scumbled passages reveal the lighter ground showing through in the upper sky. Bare tree branches on the left and the delicate verticals of a mast, flagpole, and crane-like sweep are silhouetted thinly against the glow, their dark accents anchoring the bright band beneath them.

5. Foreground Ice Texture

   The ice is rendered with thin, mostly horizontal strokes of grey and pale blue-white over a dark, warm brown layer.

   The crop shows the lower section of the ice surface, with the bases of three standing figures (a tree trunk and two pairs of booted legs) anchored along the upper edge. The ice itself is built on a dark, warm umber-brown ground that reads as wet and slightly reflective. Over this ground, the artist laid thin, mostly horizontal strokes of cooler gray and pale blue-white, breaking the surface into a network of scumbled marks. Small dabs of bright white and a single roundish pale blob (likely a snowball) sit on the lower surface. A few faint red touches appear in the upper-left corner, possibly berries or distant figures.

6. Distant Town Silhouette

   The distant castle-like buildings are massed in muted blue-grey, with pointed spires and gables against a warm sky.

   The crop reveals a castle-like town cluster rendered almost entirely in cool blue-grays against a warm pinkish-peach sky. Multiple pointed spires rise vertically, with the tallest central tower flanked by shorter turrets and stepped or triangular gables. Building edges are soft and slightly blurred, with no crisp architectural detail; the structure reads as a silhouette shaped by negative space rather than by drawn lines. Bare twiggy trees on the right share the same blue-gray key, while the foreground ground plane shifts to ochre and tan with small dark figure-strokes scattered along the bank. A pervasive network of fine craquelure covers the whole surface, confirming the age and oil-medium build-up.

7. Left Framing Tree

   The dark, slender branches of the leafless tree overlap the pale sky on the left edge.

   A slender leafless tree dominates the left edge, its dark trunk rising vertically and splintering into fine, tapering branches that fan across the upper two-thirds of the crop. The branches read as crisp, near-black silhouettes against a warm, pale peach-cream sky that subtly shifts to a cooler tone higher up. In the lower third, rooftops appear behind the trunk: a small green onion-domed turret, a brick-red chimney, and pale grey roofs touched with rust and pink, all sitting against the off-white ground. Fine craquelure networks the surface, and the tree's edges are slightly broken where pigment has thinned on individual twigs.

Enjoying the Ice in context

1. Hendrick Avercamp, Enjoying the Ice (SK-A-3247): object record and catalogue entry (Jan Piet Filedt Kok, 2007) . Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
2. Rijksmuseum and Mauritshuis jointly acquire iconic winter landscape by Avercamp (16 September 2026) . CODART
3. Kolf . Wikipedia
4. Henri Deterding . Wikipedia