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拍品專文
Willem van de Velde had begun painting calm marines with towering skies and numerous boats of varying types retreating into the distance by the early 1650s. These works were no doubt influenced by his teacher Simon de Vlieger, and by Jan van de Cappelle, who was probably also active in de Vlieger's studio in Weesp at the same time. These celebrated marines were often based on designs made by his father, Willem van de Velde the Elder, in grisaille penschilderijen, which were then transformed into coloured paintings by the younger Van de Velde. The precise nature of this working relationship is hinted at by an English Royal warrant of 1674, which specified equal payments to the two artists: to the father 'for taking and making Draughts of seafights'; and to his son 'for putting the said Draughts into colours for our particular use'.
Painted in 1655, this composition is typical of Van de Velde’s early arrangements in the way that the vessels are grouped on both sides, leaving a distant view in the centre, partly mitigated by smaller vessels in the middle distance. The artist characteristically devotes a large area in the upper reaches of the canvas to a great expanse of sky, while offering a richly detailed description of the array of vessels below. The positioning of the boats, the way the light catches their sails, and the angles at which they are viewed, is worked out with masterful care, creating an overriding sense of serene tranquility.
Frederick Perkins assembled a notable collection of Old Masters, composed chiefly of Dutch seventeenth-century landscapes and genre pictures. When the collection was dispersed in these Rooms in 1890, the sale included a fine landscape by Hobbema, now in the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio, and another marine by Van de Velde, which again sold in these Rooms on 13 December 2000, lot 33 (£1,543,750). The latter work, which is of almost identical dimensions to the present picture, was the following lot in the Perkins sale at Christie’s in 1890, and almost certainly served as its pendant while in the Perkins collection.
Painted in 1655, this composition is typical of Van de Velde’s early arrangements in the way that the vessels are grouped on both sides, leaving a distant view in the centre, partly mitigated by smaller vessels in the middle distance. The artist characteristically devotes a large area in the upper reaches of the canvas to a great expanse of sky, while offering a richly detailed description of the array of vessels below. The positioning of the boats, the way the light catches their sails, and the angles at which they are viewed, is worked out with masterful care, creating an overriding sense of serene tranquility.
Frederick Perkins assembled a notable collection of Old Masters, composed chiefly of Dutch seventeenth-century landscapes and genre pictures. When the collection was dispersed in these Rooms in 1890, the sale included a fine landscape by Hobbema, now in the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio, and another marine by Van de Velde, which again sold in these Rooms on 13 December 2000, lot 33 (£1,543,750). The latter work, which is of almost identical dimensions to the present picture, was the following lot in the Perkins sale at Christie’s in 1890, and almost certainly served as its pendant while in the Perkins collection.