East Indiamen off a Coast, Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, c. 1600 - c. 1630 – (Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom) ◄ Anterior Următor ►

Artist: Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom

data: 1630

mărimea: 104 x 199 cm

Tehnică: Oil On Canvas

Several large ships are sailing just off the Dutch coast, with numerous figures standing on the beach and dunes. In the Rijksmuseum’s collection catalogue of 1934 it was suggested that the artist depicted the departure of the second fleet to the East Indies in May 1598 under the command of Jacob van Neck.2 However, there are no indications that the largest ship was one of the four that took part in the expedition.3 The ship’s stern is not visible, making it impossible to determine its name. It is for that reason that it is better to speak of East Indiamen setting sail. According to the 1976 catalogue, the large ship is the Mauritius, one of the ships that was on both the first and the second expeditions to the East Indies (cf. SK-A-2858).4 It is suggested in the same catalogue that the ships are sailing in the Marsdiep, the channel between Den Helder and the island of Texel used by ships leaving Amsterdam for the East. However, there are no clearly recognizable landmarks to identify the site. The spectators include both fishermen and elegantly clad couples, who according to Keyes recall drawings by Hendrick Goltzius and Jacques de Gheyn II.5 The similarities, though, are no more than superficial. This painting is very akin to others by Vroom. It has his typical palette, and the dark blue of the water constantly recurs in his work, as does the distinctive, rather stiff and archaic rendering of the waves. The ships are coming from every direction, which reinforces the sense of recession into depth.6 In contrast to many other of his paintings, Vroom did not use a bird’s-eye perspective. The viewer is on the beach, as it were. It is difficult to date this picture, because there is no clear development in Vroom’s style. The use of a low or a high horizon is of no assistance, for he used both throughout his career (cf. SK-A-2858 and SK-A-602). Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007 See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 334.