Winter

1740

Jacob de Wit painted this overdoor, an allegory of Winter, for the house of Cornelis Hop, who later became burgomaster of Amsterdam. Summer and Autumn are also on view in this room. With smoothly executed scenes in white and grey paint (grisailles), De Wit emulated stucco or marble reliefs, thereby imitating sculpture. In Dutch these kinds of paintings were called ‘witjes’, a play on the artist’s surname, Wit (Dutch: ‘white’).