# Rijksmuseum and Mauritshuis buy Avercamp from a British private collection Canonical article: https://arthistory.news/news/notable-winter-landscape-by-avercamp-to-return-to-the-netherlands-for-good By ArtHistory.News Published: 2026-09-24T15:35:54.191Z The former Speelman painting will return from its Houston loan for a Dutch museum tour. Artnet reports €11.4 million, while the vendor and intermediary remain unidentified. The Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis have made their first joint purchase: Hendrick Avercamp’s Colf Players on the Ice, painted around 1625. After a long loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the small winter landscape is returning to the Netherlands. Artnet News reports a price of €11.4 million, a figure absent from the museums’ joint announcement. Its modern provenance is more specific than the phrase “private collection” suggests. Vereniging Rembrandt, which helped fund the acquisition, identifies the Edward and Sally Speelman collection and the subsequent Houston loan. It says the work has been acquired from a British private collection. That does not by itself identify the legal seller in this transaction. No named intermediary or matching earlier auction lot has been established in the sources checked. Those gaps matter: a known former collection, a lender and the seller to a museum can be different parties. The reported price can be attributed to Artnet; the museums’ announcement does not independently confirm it. At 28.5 by 51.2 cm, according to Vereniging Rembrandt’s object record, the panel concentrates on a small group playing colf on the ice. The museums contrast its close, low viewpoint with Avercamp’s earlier, more crowded panoramas. A player prepares his stroke while two dark-clad spectators stand to the right; distant skaters recede beneath a wide grey sky. The institutions also connect figures in the painting with Avercamp drawings in Dresden. Their announcement promises material examination that may clarify his working process. That research is still to come: the purchase should not be reported as if a new technical analysis had already established how the panel was made. The first Dutch display will be at the Stedelijk Museum Kampen, in Avercamp Back in Kampen: the 17th Century through the Eyes of Hendrick & Barent, from 3 October 2026 to 10 January 2027. The painting will then alternate between the two purchasing museums. Their shared ownership therefore begins with a loan beyond either institution. La Tribune de l’Art places the acquisition alongside related winter imagery by Avercamp. The most useful next chapter would be the museums’ technical findings and a fuller account of the transaction. For now, the panel’s public itinerary is clearer than the final stage of its private ownership. ## Illustrations Hendrick Avercamp, Colf Players on the Ice, about 1625. Photo: Rijksmuseum. Image published by Artnet News. [Image source](). ## Sources - [Rijksmuseum: Rijksmuseum]() - [Mauritshuis: Avercamp to return to the Netherlands]() - [Vereniging Rembrandt: Colfspelers op het ijs]() - [Artnet News: Rijksmuseum and Mauritshuis Go Dutch on $13M Painting]() (Richard Whiddington) - [La Tribune de l’Art: Un panneau d’Avercamp acquis par le Maurithshuis et le Rijksmuseum]() (Julie Demarle) - [Artprice News: Rijksmuseum and Mauritshuis acquire an Avercamp masterpiece for $13 million]() (Caroline de Parisot) ## Related records - [Hendrick Avercamp]() - [Rijksmuseum]() Please cite the canonical article URL above. Image credits and reproduction rights remain with their respective holders.