Snowman by a Snowy Cottage

About this drawing

No one knows who built the first figure in the snow, but people were making them long before a snowman with a broom showed up on holiday cards. One early example appears as a doodle in the margin of a medieval prayer book, which suggests the hobby was already familiar back then.

Famous artists tried it, too. After a heavy snowfall in Florence in January 1494, the ruler Piero de' Medici ordered a young Michelangelo to sculpt a snow statue in the palace courtyard. According to his biographer Vasari, it was a beautiful piece, though of course it didn't last. In the bitter winter of 1511, the people of Brussels filled their streets with snow figures, many of them rude jokes about politics and local scandals.

The friendly version with a carrot nose and a scarf took shape in the nineteenth century, helped along by picture books and early Christmas cards. Before that, snowmen could look grumpy or even menacing, more like winter itself. The broom is an old accessory that shows up often in antique illustrations. The American snowman reached new heights in Maine, where the town of Bethel has built record-breaking giants. Yet the appeal is still simple. Anyone with enough packing snow and a few spare buttons can make one, and it never lasts longer than the cold.

• snowman
• cottage
• broom
• winter