Winter View of Leyden

Both sources and scholarly literature provide confused, at times contradictory, information about members of the Beerstraaten artistic dynasty. Urban winter landscapes were a theme that Abraham inherited from his father, Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraaten (1622–1666). Stylistically their works are so similar that precise attribution is a question that presents serious difficulty. For example, the same motif of “a sleigh with a gentleman and two ladies, one of whom is using a mask to protect her face from the cold” occurs repeatedly in such seasonal views.
The Hermitage picture shows Leyden in wintertime at the convergence of the Old Rhine and New Rhine as well as a minor local river, the Mare. On the left in the foreground is the Weigh House, built to the design of the architect Pieter Post and completed in 1657. Alongside, on the quay, we can see a hoist for unloading goods. Rising up in the depths on the opposite bank is the eight-sided dome of the Marekerk, a church constructed between 1639 and 1649.
So, we see here a commercial city that was undergoing significant development in the artists’ time in one of the most precise depictions of it from that period. Such topographical “pedantry” is one of the distinguishing features of 17th-century Dutch landscapes.