Fishing Alone in an Icy River

This melancholy scene features a solitary fisherman on his boat, struggling to keep warm with only a hat and a thatched cape. The frigid environment is subtly indicated by the snow and ice that completely covers the trunks and bare branches of various trees on the embankment at lower left.

Although this work was formerly attributed to the 10th-century Chinese artist Li Cheng, the trope of a lonely fisherman angling in wintry waters was perfected by the Southern Song court painters Ma Yuan (active c.1190–1225) and his son Ma Lin (c.1220–after 1256). Interestingly, a famous painting by Ma Yuan, Angling on a Wintry Lake of 1195 (now in the MOA Museum of Art in Atami, Japan), is the world’s oldest known depiction of a fishing reel.