The Hunters in the Snow

The 1560s were the height of the Little Ice Age, a multi-century cooling that froze the canals of Amsterdam and the ponds of the Low Countries every winter. Bruegel painted the actual climate. The skater on the pond is among the earliest detailed depictions of ice-skating in European painting. A chimney fire on the left, treated as casual, is from the same record. Now at Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna @kunsthistorischesmuseumvienna