WILLEM VAN DE YELDE THE ELDER
CIRCA 1611-1693
in Figures on Board Small
Merchant Vessels
Pen and brown ink and blue-gray wash over leadpoint,
incised for transfer; H: 21 cm (8'Ain.); W: 32.3 cm (i2^3 / 4
in.)
87.00.8 0
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: None.
PROVENANCE: Sale, Sotheby's, Amsterdam, November
18, 1985, lot 112; art market, London.
EXHIBITIONS: None.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: None.
BEST KNOWN FOR HIS DEPICTIONS OF SHIPS, WlLLEM
van de Velde was also capable of capturing a sense of the
bustling activity of maritime life. The drawing has been
extensively incised for transfer down to fine details, but
no further related work is known. While there are other
comparable shore and harbor scenes drawn by van de
Velde,^1 these do not give as much prominence to the hu-
man presence as does the Museum's drawing. In this re-
spect it calls to mind the studies of figure groups in the
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.^2 Robinson
dated the latter to circa 1655; he also considers the Mu-
seum's drawing to be early, placing it circa 1650 (Sothe-
by's 1985).1. For example M. S. Robinson, Van de Velde Drawings: A Cat-
alogue of Drawings in the National Maritime Museum Made by the
Elder and the Younger Willem van de Velde (Cambridge, 1974),
vol. 2, nos. 777, 819.
2. Ibid., p. 6, nos. 779-816, esp. 792, 796.258 DUTCH SCHOOL • W. VAN DE VELDE