Régis François Gignoux (1816–1882)

Oil on canvas 

Gift of Mrs. Carter Galt and Mrs. Charles C. Spalding, 1972 (4090.1) 

The French painter Régis Gignoux worked in the United States for over three decades and specialized in landscape and genre scenes. Although he resided in Brooklyn, New York, he made numerous sketching excursions to New Jersey, the Hudson River Valley, and the Adirondack and White Mountains. In this charming winter scene, ice skaters glide about a frozen pond in the late-afternoon twilight; like his fellow landscape painters, Gignoux wished to capture nature in all its seasonal changes as a habitable place for humans.