Jacob de Wit: Winter ( 1740)


This depiction of Winter, personified by three children warming themselves around a fire pot, seems to be a sculptured relief, but is actually painted. This technique, a form of 'trompe l'oeil' (visual deception), is called grisaille for its use of only black and white paint. The diverse grey tones create altogether the illusion of carved stone. Grisailles already existed since Classical antiquity (and was, for example, brilliantly used by Jan van Eyck to depict saints in his famous Ghent Altarpiece), but got especially popular around 1700 as a decoration in (Dutch) interiors of wealthy people.
This sweet portrait of Winter was originally part of a series of all the four seasons. 'Summer' and 'Autumn' are kept in the Rijksmuseum collection as well, but unfortunately 'Spring' disappeared. The man who painted them, the Amsterdam painter Jacob de Wit (1695-1754), was a real specialist in this genre. In fact, he was identified so much with it, that grisailles in the Netherlands were usually called ‘witjes’, after his surname.

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