There are few records of this artistÆs activity, especially his earlier career. His earliest known pain
ting, \i On the Ice\i0 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, dates from 1635. We have no idea who his teachers were but it is known that he ran a wineshop in Amsterdam, which went bankrupt in 1662. He is best known for his nocturnal pictures, often painted b
y moonlight. In these works he made use of an unusual sort of chiaroscuro, in which the deep blue of the night is illuminated by a light whose hue varies from white to red. Among his best-known works are the \i River Scene by Moonlight\i0 (Rijksmuseum
, Amsterdam) and \i Dawn\i0 (Mauritshuis, The Hague). The artist also produced a number of unconventional pictures, including several winter landscapes and \i Fires at Night\i0 (MusΘes Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and Pushkin Museum, Moscow).
