Alsloot was court artist to the Spanish rulers of the Southern Netherlands, Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella. Working mainly in Brussels, he produced landscapes, scenes of local festivals and ceremonies. This drawing dates from the early period in the development of Flemish landscape painting: the realistic representation of the landscape, enlivened with little genre scenes, seems to have been drawn from nature. The artist shows a scene on the edge of a small town, with rustic cottages to the left, and on the right the ice-covered river with skaters scurrying to and fro. In the foreground is a group of wealthy burghers who have come out for a walk. The panoramic nature of the landscape and the decorative treatment of the whimsically gnarled tree trunks and branches are very much part of the traditions of 16th-century Netherlandish landscape painting.