Object data
oil on panel
support: height 64.5 cm × width 85.2 cm (oval)
Adam Willaerts
Shipwreck off a Rocky Coast
1614
Inscriptions
- signature and date, bottom centre on the side of the lifeboat: AD Wilarts fe 1614
Technical notes
The support is a single oval oak panel with a diagonal grain and is bevelled all round. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1590. The panel could have been ready for use by 1599, but a date in or after 1609 is more likely. A thin, white ground was applied overall, followed by a pinkish imprimatura. Traces of underdrawing are visible in the rocks on the left. Thinly applied, broad brushmarks are visible in the sky, and impasto was used for the highlights.
Scientific examination and reports
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 29 April 2004
- technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 4 November 2004
- infrared reflectography: G. Tauber, RMA, 4 November 2004
Condition
Fair. There are areas of abrasion and an increased transparency in the upper part of the sky and the rocks on the left. There is a crack some 6 cm long running up from the bottom edge of the panel.
Conservation
- L. Kuiper, 1979: complete restoration
- H. Kat, 1992: superficial dirt removed; retouched; varnish buffed
Provenance
...; sale, various properties, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 16 April 1902, no. 165, fl. 235.75, to the museum
Object number: SK-A-1955
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Adam Willaerts (London 1577 - Utrecht 1664)
According to De Bie and Houbraken, Adam Willaerts was born in Antwerp, but recently discovered documents show that he was the son of a Flemish immigrant in London. The baptismal register of Austin Friars Church shows that he was baptized on 21 July 1577. The family probably moved to Amsterdam around 1589. In 1602, Adam Willaerts and Salomon Vredeman de Vries were commissioned to paint the organ shutters in Utrecht Cathedral. He became a citizen of Utrecht six years later, and it was around then that he painted his first known dated work, The Dutch East India Company Fleet near an Island off the Coast of West Africa, in 1608 or 1609.1
That Willaerts was an important figure among Utrecht artists is clear from his active involvement in founding the city’s Guild of St Luke in 1611, and from the fact that he served as its dean for many years. He was in regular touch with other Utrecht artists, such as Roelant Savery, Cornelis van Poelenburch, Herman Saftleven and Bernard Zwaerdecroon.
It can be deduced from the guild accounts that he taught a large number of ‘apprentice boys’. He was married and had six children, three of whom also became painters: Cornelis (?-1666), Abraham (c. 1613-1669) and Isaac (c. 1620-93).
Much of Willaerts’s oeuvre consists of marines and coastal landscapes. He also made seascapes featuring biblical figures. Willaerts regularly received specific commissions, among others from the burgomasters of Utrecht, the Dordrecht Chamber of Justice2 and the States of Utrecht (SK-A-1387). Through the artist Simon de Passe he also received a request from King Christian IV of Denmark to contribute to a series of paintings for Kronborg Castle. He also painted for the open market. Adam Willaerts died in 1664. His last known dated work, Shipwreck in a Violent Storm, is from 1656.3
Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007
References
De Bie 1661, pp. 111-12; Von Sandrart 1675 (1925), p. 176; Houbraken I, 1718, p. 60; Schulz in Thieme/Becker XXXVI, 1947, pp. 8-9; Muller 1880, pp. 92, 96, 98, 126; Bok in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 325-26; Giltaij in Rotterdam-Berlin 1996, p. 113; Briels 1997, pp. 407-08
Entry
It was in 1614 that Adam Willaerts painted this oval panel with four ships in a perilous position in stormy seas near a rocky coast.4 One of them has almost sunk, and the crew are trying to save themselves in a sloop, but they may be facing another threat in the form of an enormous fish. The dark green seawater and the towering waves flecked with foam are typical of Willaerts’s early work. The heavily listing ships also feature in other paintings of his from this period, such as St Paul Landing on Malta of 1621.5 There are also clear similarities between the Rijksmuseum painting and another oval panel with Jonah and the Whale that is dated c. 1620.6
Willaerts painted another oval panel in 1614 that is exactly the same size as this one. It may have been intended as a pendant, although it is of a different subject, being a coastal scene with a fish market.7 It is possible that the plan was to combine a depiction of a storm with one of a calm sea to illustrate both the sea’s dangers and bounty.8 A multitude of paintings, prints and drawings of ships in dire straits on a stormy sea had been made since the 16th century, mainly in the Netherlands but also in Italy.9
Willaerts very probably based his rocky coast on drawings by Roelant Savery,10 and the latter’s influence is also apparent in other paintings of his (SK-A-1927). He must also have known Vroom’s work, as shown by the similarities in the way they both depicted ships.
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. 342.
Literature
Willis 1911, pp. 25, 26; Walsh 1971, pp. 74, 89; Bol 1973, p. 64; Goedde 1989, pp. 173-74; Kloek in Amsterdam 1993, p. 531, no. 207
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 300, no. 2685; 1934, p. 319, no. 2685; 1960, p. 343, no. 2685; 1976, p. 605, no. A 1955; 2007, no. 342
Citation
E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Adam Willaerts, Shipwreck off a Rocky Coast, 1614', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6572
(accessed 27 May 2024 14:24:40).