Graf Josef Fries (d. 1788), Vienna;
His son, Reichsgraf Moritz Christian Fries (1777-1826), where displayed in the Erste Zimmer of the Graf Fries Palais  (Josephsplatz, today Palais Pallavicini), in Vienna until circa 1821;
Bought by King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria (d. 1825) in circa 1821 for his "Privat Gemälde Sammlung" (Private Collection of paintings), and kept at the Residenz, Munich;
In an inventory of his collection drawn up by Georg von Dillis in 1823-5, as No. 98;
His deceased sale, Munich, 5ff December 1826;
There acquired with several other paintings for the Königliche Gemäldegalerie and exhibited at the Pinakothek (now Alte Pinakothek) from 1836, as part of the Zentralgemäldedirektion, and subsequently the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (from 1856 onwards as inv. no. 1037);
By whom deaccessioned in 1940 (approval given by the Bavarian State Ministry on 16th January 1940) and sold by exchange to Walter Andreas Hofer, Berlin;
Adalbert Bela Mangold, Cannes, until 1966;
With H. Terry Engell, London, 1966-7 (included in his catalogue of Important Old Master Paintings, 1966, no. X, reproduced);
With Gebr. Douwes, Amsterdam, 1967, by whom exhibited in the Delft Fair in that year;
Herbert Girardet, Kettwig, by whom bough🌊t in 1967, until 1978, when acquired by the present owner.

Munich, Königlichen Pinakothek, and subsequently Alte Pinakothek, until 1940;
Delft, Museum Het Prinsenhof, XIXe Oude Kunst- en Antiekbeurs, 22 June - 12 July 1967 (exhibited by Gebr. Douwes);
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 24 January - 30 March 1970; Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 24 April - 7 June 1970, Sammlung Herbert Girardet, no. 39;
The Hague, Mauritshuis, Terugzien in bewondering. A Collector's Choice, 19 February - 9 March 1982, no. 64;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 2 October 1987 - 3 January 1988; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 3 February - 1 May 1988; Philadelphia, Museum of Art, 5 June - 31 July 1988, Masters of 17th Century Dutch Landscape Painting, no. 64;
Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, The Golden Age of Dutch Landscape Painting, 1994, no. 42;
The Hague, Mauritshuis, Holland Frozen in Time.  The Dutch Winter Landscape in the Golden Age, 24 Novem▨ber 2001 - 25 February 2002, no. 19. 

G. von Dillis, Verzeichnis der Gemaelde in der königlichen Pinakothek zu München, Munich 1838, p. 569, no. 251 (reprinted in Böttger below);
Verzeichnis der Gemälde in der Königlichen Pinakothek zu München, Munich 1838, 1839, 1845, p. 220, 1853, p. 205, 1856, p. 204, 1865, p. 183, always as no. 251;
G. Waagen, Handbuch der Geschichte der deutschen und niederländischen Malerschulen, Stuttgart 1862, p. 150;
Th. Gaedertz, Adriaen van Ostade, sein Leben und seine Kunst, Lübeck 1869, p. 135 (as Isack van Ostade); R. Marggraff, Die ältere königliche Pinakothek zu München. Verzeichnis und Beschreibung... von Prof. Dr. Rudolf Marggraff, Munich 1872 (3rd ed., 1st. ed., 1865), p. 175/6, no. 843 (251 in the Dillis catalogue);
Die Ältere Königliche Pinakothek zu München, Munich 1879, 1881, p. 148, 1884, 1886, p. 81, always as no. 378;
Katalog der Gemäldesammlung der Königlich Älteren Pinakothek, Munich 1884, revised ed., 1886, 1888, 4th ed., 1891, p. 81, 1893, p. 81, 1896, 7th ed., 1898, 8th ed., 1901, revised ed., 1904, p. 90, 10th ed. 1908, p. 88, 1911, p. 110, always as no. 378;
G. Hirth & R Muther, Der Cicerone in der Königlichen Pinakothek zu München, Munich 1888, p. 163;
A. Rosenberg, Adriaen und Isack van Ostade, Bielefeld & Leipzig 1900, p. 100;
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. III, London 1910, p. 463, no. 83 (German ed., Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis..., vol. III, Esslingen 1910, p. 483, no. 83);
A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon..., Vienna & Leipzig 1910, vol II, p. 288;
Th von Frimmel, Lexikon der Wiener Gemäldesammlungen, Munich 1913, pp. 416, 420;
I. Errera, Répertoire des Peintures datées, Brussels 1920, p. 240;
Katalog der Älteren Pinakothek zu München, 1922, p. 110, 1925, p. 111, 1928, p. 101, 1930, p. 117. 1936, p. 180, always as no. 1037;
W. Stechow, "Bermerkungen zu Jan Steens künstlerischer Entwicklung," in Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, vol. 62, 1928, p. 173, repriduced p. 175;
 W. Martin, De Hollandsche Schilderkunst in de 17 éeuw, vol. I, Frans Hals en zijn tijd, Amsterdam 1935, 1943, p. 404, reproduced p. 405, no. 244;
Weltkunst, vol. XXXVI, no. 20, 15 October 1966, p. 939;
The Burlington Magazine, December 1966, Supplement (Notable Works of Art now on the Market), reproduced plate XII;
J.R. Kist, "De 19de Antiekbeurs," in Toeristenkampioen (NAWB), 1 July 1967, pp. 424-5, no. 13, reproduced;
H. Vey, Sammlung Herbert Girardet.  Holländische und Flämische Meister, exhibition catalogue, Cologne 1970, (unpaginated), no. 39, reproduced;
P. Böttger, Die Alte Pinakothek in München. Mit einem Anhang: Abdruck des frühesten Gemäldeverzeichnisses der Pinakothek aus dem Jahre 1838 von Georg von Dillis. Nach den heutigen Inventarnummern identifiziert von Gisela Scheffler, Munich 1972, p. 569 (republishing Von Dillis' inventory; Scheffler identified the painting as inv. no. 1037);
E. Bénézit, Dictionaire critique et documentaire de Peintres..., 1976, p. 48;
Meisterwerke der Malerei in Deutschen Museen, vol. II, Biberach 1977, under I. von Ostade;
B.D. Kirschenbaum, The Religious and Historical Paintings of Jan Steen, Oxford 1977, p. 35, reproduced p. 168, fig. 23;
K. Braun, Jan Steen, Rotterdam 1980, p. 86, under no. 11, reproduced p. 87, no. 11a;
K.J. Müllenmeister, Meer und Land im Licht des 17. Jahrhunderts, vol. 3, Bremen 1981, pp. 17, 18, no. 292, reproduced fig. 292;
W.L. van de Watering, in H.R. Hoetink (ed.), Terugzien in bewondering/A Collectors Choice, exhibition catalogue, The Hague 1982, p. 168, reproduced p, 169;
A. Chong, in P.C. Sutton, Masters of 17th Century Dutch Landscape Painting, exhibition catalogue, London 1988, pp. 392-4, no. 64, reproduced, and in colour plate 46;
P.C. Sutton, The Golden Age of Dutch Landscape Painting, exhibition catalogue, Madrid 1994, p. 160, no. 42, reproduced in colour;
C. Steeb, Die Grafen von Fries..., doctoral dissertation, Graz 1996, pp. 257-8;  
A. van Suchtelen, Holland Frozen in Time.  The Dutch Winter Landscape in the Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Zwolle 2002, (partly unpaginated), no. 19, & pp. 162-3, no. 19, reproduced in colour. 

The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting in on a large oak panel made up of three pieces. It is beautifully flat and structurally secure, clearly having always remained perfectly stable. The two joints have never shifted or been reglued, with just a brief retouching at the extreme left end of the upper joint. The present restoration is not very recent and some old retouching can be seen with the naked eye: mainly small touches in the right of the sky over occasional small marks or tiny knocks, with a cluster in the lower centre of the sky above the tree. Another discoloured retouching can be seen above the roof of the little shed on the central horizon. It is the horizon, which has been rather more worn than elsewhere, as often happens, with the various roofs often thin and strengthened in places with occasional retouching. The branches of the tree against the horizon are also somewhat thin, and the distant skaters and ice on the left slightly thin and strengthened. The group gathered in the far left distance by the windmill is largely beautifully intact with just a little thinness in the roof of the house by the left edge. The upper blue sky on the left is in fine unworn condition generally, as is the beautiful central cloud, while the sweep of sky on the right is thinner and sometimes interrupted by small retouchings, including a line of retouching down the upper right edge. The immediate foreground along the base edge is also thin, with some strengthening retouching mainly in the water in the middle and in the left corner. The signature is a little faint, and the barrel nearby worn. However the main central core of the foreground figures and the middle distance landscape is magnificently intact. The group of horse and cart in the middle is perfectly preserved in every crisp yet velvety detail, as is the lovely still life of tangled vegetation and farmyard clutter to the right side and pile of logs nearby. The children just above and the groups near the Inn are just marginally less immaculately intact while the little boy tying his shoe laces in the centre is exquisitely complete in every minute brushstroke. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Isack van Ostade made winter landscapes a speciality, and he painted them from 1642 (or possibly a little before) until 1647, two years before his untimely death.  They are the works for which he is best known, and on which his fame as a painter rests.  Most of them are, like the present work, composed on a diagonal, with a frozen river with a windmill in the distance to one side, and buildings and bare trees on a riverbank to the other, and a white horse hauling a wooden sledge up the bank is a motif he was evidently fond of.  The composition is sometimes reversed; an undated work in the Louvre, Paris, has the horse and sledge mounting a riverbank to the left and the distant windmill to the right, and another, in a private collection in The Hague, is dated 1644, the same year as the present work, which it resembles remarkably closely, albeit reversed.¹

This picture, or one very like it, clearly inspired Jan Steen in one of his rare winter landscapes; a work in a private collection in Sweden, which is similarly composed.²  An early work, it may have been painted in Haarlem, where Steen was probably a pupil of Isack's brother Adriaen in the late 1640s (it was already sent to Sweden in 1651, a decade before Steen moved to Haarlem).  Isack van Ostade's winter landscapes were a strong influence on the work of other Haarlem landscape painters, including Claes Molenaer and Philips Wouwerman.

Alan Chong thought that a rough sketch by Isack van Ostade, the verso in black chalk of a drawing in Haarlem, Teylers Museum, outlines the composition of the present work, but the resemblance is at best tenuous.³  

This picture will be included in Dr Hiltraud Doll's planned catalogue raisonné of the paintings of Adriaen and Isack van Ostade.

PROVENANCE
Reichsgraf Moritz Christian Fries (1777-1826) was the owner of the bank Fries & Co. and his family counted among the richest families in Vienna.  He is to be seen with his family in a group portrait by Francois Gérard which is now in the Belvedere gallery, Vienna.  Unfortunately he went bankrupt and had to sell the large art collection assembled by his father.

The Alte Pinakothek deaccessioned this work by exchange in 1940 (see provenance).  Together with a work by the arti🌺st's brother Adriaen van Ostade it was exchanged for a still life by Willem Kalf which is still in the Alte Pinakothek (inv. no. FV 17).  We are most grateful to Dr. Marcus Dekiert, Curator for Dutch and German Baroque Painting at the Alte Pinakothek, for his help in establishing the correct provenance. 

1. Peter Sutton (writing in the catalogue of his 1988 exhibition; see Literature, pp. 391-2, no. 63, reproduced in colour plate 45) dates the Paris picture circa 1644-7, while Alan Chong, in the following entry for this picture (see under Literature, 1988, p. 393) thinks that present work immediately post-dates the Paris painting.
2. Baron Rutger von Essen, Skokloster; see E. Runia, in A. van Suchtelen, under Literature, 2001, reproduced in colour facing page; Chong, under Literature, 1988, p. 393, where reproduced fig. 2, and Sutton, 1994; also Kirschenbaum, 1977 & Braun, 1980, p. 86, no. 11, reproduced fig. 11.
3. Chong, under Literature; see B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade. Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Hamburg 1981, vol. 1, p. 172, no. 479 (verso), reproduced vol.ཧ 2, p. 200.  Schnackenburg connected the drawings with a different landscape by Isack van Ostade.