Skating in the 16th century
There are very few stories about skating in the 16th century. Fortunately, one can get a rather good picture of how popular skating had become if one looks at the picture of Hans Bol made in 1589 of the "skating pleasures close to Amsterdam". The people skate on the river "de Amstel" and at the background one can see the Old church of Amsterdam. In this painting we also see how many people, with or without skates went on the ice when it was possible at that time. The number of spectators is also impressive. It seems that all people liked this atmosphere.
The second painting of Pieter van der Heyden made in 1570 presents different activities on the ice. Some people skate alone but very central in the painting are two pairs, the two people of one pair are concentrated on each other. The other pair is bothered by some boys. There is also a scene that a man and woman fall on the ice. If one looks well on can see the naked buttocks of the woman. Such a scene can be seen in many painting of that time. I leave it to you to look for other interesting scenes.
The most famous paintings in that century were made by painter Breugel de Oude who created artificial ladscapes in the winter where at some place some skaters appear on a lake. We show below the famous painting of the " hunters in the snow". It is a very nice painting but it is less informative about the life of the people at that time than the other two painting presented above