Frederik Marinus Kruseman (Dutch 1816-1882)Villagers in a snowy landscapeOil on panel Signed (lower right); inscribed and dated 1881 (verso)59 x 48cm (23 x 18¾ in.) The present lot was painted in 1881, a year before the artist's death and during his second period of living in Brussels. The Belgian countryside was a constant source of inspiration to the artist who used not only the frozen waterways as subjects but also the ruined monuments, abbeys, and houses which he made detailed studies of and then used in his compositions. Villagers in a winter landscape is a good example of this with the large snowy red brick house to the right overlooking the icy landscape animated by the figures below.Kruseman was a Dutch painter, born in Haarlem, but lived in Brussels for two separate periods in his life, first between 1841 and 1852, the second time from 1856 until his death in 1882. For Kruseman, the city was a place where Dutch artistic influence was still strong, and the expanding middle class was creating a better demand than in his native Holland. During 1844 Kruseman visited Paris briefly where he would have been exposed to the work of the more progressive artists of the Barbizon School. It was after that trip, when the landscape tradition was splintering into various groups that Kruseman committed himself to the tradition of Koekkoek and the Dutch Romantic School.The hallmarks of Frederik Marinus Kruseman's mature style for his winter scenes are all present in Villagers in a winter landscape: the large house, the carved tracks in the snow, the leafless trees set against the sky with the suggestion of a city in the distance and the characters on the ice and snowy path enjoying the winter weather. This was a formula Kruseman early on in his career and which sold well for over forty years. Medium Oil on panel