Ships in a calm

Reinier Nooms was a highly respected and prolific marine painter, draughtsman, and printmaker in the mid-seventeenth century, a period during which the commercial reach of the Dutch Republic extended across the globe. Born in Amsterdam in either 1623 or 1624, he is presumed to have received his artistic training there, although the identity of his master remains unknown. The artist’s subject speciality and the fact that he signed his paintings R. Zeeman or Reinier Zeeman (‘zeeman’ meaning sailor or seaman) strongly suggest that he was also a professional sailor. A first-hand familiarity with maritime life would explain the exceptional degree of accuracy and precision that distinguishes his work from other marine painters.

A note on the provenance
The present work is first recorded in the eminent collection of the gold and diamond magnate Alfred Beit, when Wilhelm von Bode, then curator of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin and Beit's advisor, published it in his 1904 catalogue of the collection at Beit’s London residence at 26 Park Lane in Mayfair. In 1986, Beit’s descendants made one of the most generous philanthropic gifts in the arts to Ireland by giving many of the most celebrated pictures in the collection to the National Gallery of Ireland. These included masterpieces by Vermeer, Gabriel Metsu, Jacob van Ruisdael, Goya and Gainsborough, amongst others. The donation transformed the Gallery’s collection of Old Master Paintings and a wing of the Gallery was fittingly named ‘The Beit Wing’ in recognition of this remarkable gift.