Ships in the Ice

About this artwork

signatuur, rechtsonder: ‘G.H. Breitner’

Art Historical Context

George Hendrik Breitner’s *Ships in the Ice* (1901) captures a stark winter moment on what appears to be a frozen Dutch waterway, with vessels locked in ice under a pale sky. Painted in oil on canvas (115 x 163 cm), this-scale work bears the artist’s signature, “G.H. Breitner,” in the lower right. As a prominent figure in the Amsterdam Impressionists Breitner blended Realism with loose, atmospheric brushwork to evoke the raw energy of urban and natural life in late 19th- and early 20th-century Netherlands. The painting reflects the harsh realities of Dutch maritime commerce during long, icy w...

About the Artist

George Hendrik Breitner · 1857–1923

In the early 1880s, he and Vincent van Gogh painted the residents of the working class neighborhoods of The Hague and in the province of Drenthe. Breitner moved to Amsterdam in 1886, where he became the leading painter of the Amsterdam Impressionists, documenting the urban life of Amsterdam and its residents. Comment on works: Landscapes; Views