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Notes
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Three merchant vessels are shown amid choppy waves, close to the rugged coast. The largest ship is caught by a stark ray of light from the left which illuminates its stern and the sailors on board are rendered in tiny, imprecise specks of brightly coloured paint. The vessel is under reduced sail, with her main and fore yards partly lowered, and two small red flags are visible atop its masts. The central ship is flanked by a similar one in the middle distance on the left, which also bears two red flags. On the right a smaller coastal craft pitches across the rough water. Looming cliffs in the left foreground, from which foliage descends, are brightly silhouetted against the spiky waves. The exact whereabouts depicted are not known although the scene looks Mediterranean, especially the coastal landscape in the right background.
The painting’s intimate scale and high finish identify it as a cabinet picture, a small, jewel-like image executed on copper which would have originally formed part of a collector’s cabinet of pictures or may have been integrated in a piece of ornate furniture. This kind of picture was extremely popular in the artist’s native Antwerp, where collectors exhibited their works in picture galleries or cabinets, rooms in which paintings covered the entire surface of the walls.
Title
Shipping off a Rocky Coast
Date
c.1660s
Medium
oil on copper
Measurements
H 9.6 x W 14 cm
Accession number
BHC0850
Work type
Painting