Oil on canvas
Private collection

On a visit to Norway in the 1890’s Claude Monet took a sleigh ride out of Oslo (then known as Christiania) across the ice-covered fjord: “At last I finally managed to see the sea”, he wrote to his wife back home. “It’s half an hour away from here; you drive the sleigh over the ice until you get to where the fjord is no longer frozen over. It was marvellous! It was such a pleasure, and gave me a delightful motif with the little snow-covered islands nestling low on the water, with mountains in the background.”