A calm: fishermen at work on a sandbank with a wijdschip approaching a harbour nearby, other shipping beyond, at dawn

The present lot is notable for it's subtle use of colouring, the soft light breaking through the clouds and the masterly free brushwork of the sky. It is to be compared with the Man-of-War in a Calm in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, inv. n0BHC0780 (Lof der Zeevaart, exh. cat., Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen Rotterdam, 1996, p.188/9, fig.34). Simon de Vlieger is the most important marine painter of the first half of the 17th century. As pointed out by Jan Kelch, op. cit., p.188, his style reflects both the idiom of Hendrick Vroom and the tonal atmosphere of Jan Porcellis. The present unpublished picture is characteristic for the years 1642/3.