Sail­ing sledges, fish­er­men, kolfers, nobly dressed skaters — the high­ly enter­tain­ing Dutch ​“Win­ter Plea­sures” — a spe­cial form of land­scape paint­ing that emerged in the 17^th cen­tu­ry — show entire social panora­mas on the ice, snow-cov­ered land­scapes, frozen inland seas. In fact, between 1550 and 1800, the Nether­lands expe­ri­enced par­tic­u­lar­ly severe win­ter months, the so-called ​“Lit­tle Ice Age”. His­tor­i­cal cli­mate research has also dis­cov­ered these nat­u­ral­is­tic paint­ings. To what extent can works of art be under­stood as evi­dence of cli­mat­ic phe­nom­e­na? What infor­ma­tion do they pro­vide about con­crete weath­er sit­u­a­tions? Were they cre­at­ed ​‘after life’ or rather ​‘plau­si­ble fictions’?