A Dutch twenty-gun frigate dismasted in a storm off Enkhuizen

Details

LUDOLF BAKHUYZEN (EMDEN, EAST FRISIA 1631-1708 AMSTERDAM)
A Dutch twenty-gun frigate dismasted in a storm off Enkhuizen
oil on canvas
39 3/8 x 50½ in. (100 x 128.2 cm.)

Provenance

Philippe Panné, Great George Street, London; (+†) Christie's, London, 29 March 1819, lot 91 (85 gns. to Ward).
H.M. King William II of the Netherlands; sale, De Vries, Roos and Brondgeest, The Hague, 12 August 1850, lot 97 (5,650 florins to Jeronimo de Vries, presumably on behalf of van Brienen).
Willem Thierrÿÿ Arnold Maria, Baron van Brienen, heer van de Groote Lindt Dortsmond, Stad aan het Haringvliet and Wasenaar, The Hague, Chamberlain to King William; (+†) sale, Le Roy, Paris, 8 May 1865, lot 1 (11,000 francs to Mercy d'Argentan).

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné, etc., VII, London, 1923, p. 298, no. 383.
G. de Beer, Ludolf Backhuysen, Zwolle, 2002, p. 72, no. 27, fig. 77.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

This painting was formerly in the celebrated collection of King William II of the Netherlands. A passionate collector, the bulk of the King's first collection was destroyed by fire in 1820. Undeterred, however, he began again, and by the end of 1823 had already accumulated 49 major paintings, including works by Bellini and Perugino. By the end of his life, his collection included such works as del Piombo's Lamentation (St. Petersburg, Hermitage) and del Sarto's Madonna and Child (London, Wallace Collection); perhaps his most remarkable acquisition was a set of two portfolios containing over 500 drawings by Fra Bartolommeo (Rotterdam, Boijmans-Van Beuningen Museum). Northern works included Rembrandt's Man in Oriental Costume (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), Rubens' Christ's Charge to Peter (London, Wallace Collection), Van Eyck's Annunciation (Washington, D.C., National Gallery), and his Lucca Madonna (Frankfurst, Städelsches Kunstinstitut), and Van der Weyden's Miraflores Triptych (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie). After his death it emerged that, less than a year previously, King William had borrowed one million guilders from his brother-in-law, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, with the paintings as security. It was decided to auction the collection in order to repay the loan.

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