Jan van de Cappelle (1625/6-1679)

The Property of THE TRUSTEES OF THE D. J. ROBARTS MARRIAGE SETTLEMENT

Details

Jan van de Cappelle (1625/6-1679)

Shipping in a Calm at Flushing with a States Yacht firing a Salute

signed and dated 'J V. capeL 1645'

on panel

27 3/8 x 36¼in. (69.7 x 92.2cm.)

Provenance

Abraham Robarts, Hill Street, Berkeley Square, London, by 1856, and by descent

Literature

G. F. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain,
1857, p.162 'One of the finest pictures of the master, approaching Cuyp in solidity of execution and transparency of tone'
A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, 1906, p.242 C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné, etc., VII,
1923, p.171, no.50 'One of the master's best pictures. In solid execution and in transparency of tone it comes near to Cuyp'
W. Gibson, Mr. John Robarts' Collection of Pictures, Apollo, VIII, no.45, Sept.1928, p.118, illustrated in colour on the cover and opposite p.134
W. Stechow, Dutch Landscape Painting of the 17th Century, 1966, pp.117 and 208, note 30
W. Bernt, Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century, I, 1969, pl.223
J.-H. Martin in the catalogue of the exhibition, Le siècle de Rembrandt. Tableaux hollandais des collections publiques françaises, Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, 1970-1, pp.234-5
M. Russell, Jan van de Cappelle, 1975, pp.17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 58, note 8, 59, note 4, figs.1 and 1a (detail), and with a photograph of the signature and date opposite p.112
M. S. Robinson, Review of M. Russell 'Jan van de Cappelle', The
Burlington Magazine, CXVIII, no.884, Nov. 1976, p.779
J. Walsh and C. P. Schneider, catalogue of the exhibition, A Mirror of Nature. Dutch Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1981-2, p.31, note 1
M. A. Russell, Aelbert Cuyp, The Maas at Dordrecht: The Great Assembly of the Dutch Armed Forces, June-July 1646, Dutch Crossing, A Journal of Low Countries Studies, 40, Spring 1990, pp.39-40 and 45,
note 33, and fig.19
G. S. Keyes, catalogue of the exhibition, Mirror of Empire. Dutch Marine Art of the Seventeenth Century, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Toledo Museum of Art and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1990-1, p.110, under no.12, note 2

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, Dutch Art, 4 Jan.-9 March 1929, no.262; Illustrated Souvenir, p.19, pl.15
Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, Le paysage Hollandais au XVIIe siècle, 1950-1

Lot Essay

The date 1645 on the present picture establishes it as the earliest known 'parade' picture, a 'gathering of boats in a perfectly calm sea with luminous reflections', Russell, op. cit., 1975, p.21, antedating by four years Simon de Vlieger's painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (ibid., fig.2). At the time it was painted the artist was only about twenty years old, an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that he was apparently self-taught (his friend Gerbrand van den Eeckhout described him in 1654 in the Album Amicorum Jacobus Heyblocq, now in the Royal Library at The Hague, as 'bij hem selfs uijt eygen lust geleert' - 'who taught himself to paint out of his own desire', see ibid., pp.10 and 48).

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