Attributed to Willem van de Velde II

Attributed to WILLEM VAN DE VELDE II (Leiden, 1633-London, 1707).
"Marina".
Oil on panel.
Attached to the back a letter of the nineteenth century signed in Paris in which the authorship of De Velde is mentioned.
Measurements: 40,5 x 57 cm; 50 x 67,5 x 5 cm (frame).

Willem van de Velde II was one of the most outstanding Dutch 17th century marine painters. His production is part of the classic period of Dutch landscape painting and his atmospheric effects are unparalleled in the compositions of earlier artists. To elaborate his oil paintings, Van de Welde took notes from life, and even traveled with the fleet to have a direct reference of the events that took place in the naval battles, as his father Willem Van de Velde I had already done, of whom he was a disciple. It follows that all the elements related to navigation, such as the direction of the wind that swells the sails or moves the clouds, are taken into account, as well as the effects of light on the water. All this is more than evident in this impressive marina. On this occasion, the calm waters escape to a misty horizon. The commercial and warships have been accurately depicted.

This navy can be compared to the one in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, entitled "The Dutch Navy Fleet at Goeree" (ca.1672). It shows a similar distribution of vessels in a calm sea, whose surface reverberates myriads of tonal ranges that veer from blue to silver. In the foreground are the larger vessels, whose sails, masts and flags sway in the breeze. The ships in the background can be glimpsed with less definition, as a result of a magnificent atmospheric treatment. Boats and sailboats full of figures alternate with the large ships. The painting under consideration here devotes more space to the sky, taking a low point of view, which allows the author to masterfully capture the density and movement of the clouds. Likewise, the ships do not fire blanks as in Thyssen's painting, where the smoke obscures the horizon line, which does not occur in this painting, and the atmospheric perspective is displayed in greater depth. In short, the careful drawing is balanced with a natural ability to compose enveloping scenographies. The tactile and plastic quality of the scene reaches high levels of sublimity, in keeping with the marine painting that was developing in Flanders at the same time.

Willem van de Velde, the Younger was baptized in Leiden in 1633; his father Willem van de Velde, the Elder was a well-known marine painter. The family settled in Amsterdam during the year 1636, when a second son, Adriaen, who also took up painting, was born. Willem II initially trained with his father, and according to the Dutch biographer Arnold Houbraken later completed his studies in the workshop of Simon de Vlieger in Weesp. Father and son used to sail taking sketches from life, drawings that Willem junior continued to use for his paintings throughout his career. Van de Velde II's earliest known works, dating from the 1650s, depict groups of ships at rest in calm waters, dominated by silvery tones reminiscent of Simon de Vlieger's work. In 1652 Willem van de Velde the Younger married Petronella le Maire in Amsterdam, and eighteen months later he began separation proceedings. He remarried, in second marriage, to Magdalene Walravens in 1656. The Van de Velde worked in Amsterdam until 1672, year in which the war with England was resumed and the French invaded Holland, moment in which they moved to London. In England they enjoyed the protection of the Duke of York and King Charles II, who paid each of them an annual salary of one hundred pounds sterling; to the father for "occupying himself and making the delineation of sea battles" and to his son "for coloring the aforementioned drawings". This collaboration was based at the Queen's House in Greenwich, where the van de Velde's ran a workshop. The subjects of Willem van de Velde, the Younger changed after his departure for England, where he began to replace groups of anonymous ships with specific vessels of the royal fleet or war frigates, while the calm waters of his early works were replaced by scenes of storms and shipwrecks. After his father's death, Willem the Younger continued to run a large workshop full of assistants and apprentices, including his sons Willem III and Cornelis van de Velde, Johan van der Hage and Pieter Monamy, but his main imitators are to be found among the English marine painters of the 18th century.