Object data
oil on panel
support: height 24.1 cm × width 34.5 cm
outer size: depth 4.8 cm (support incl. frame)
Jan Porcellis
Fishing Boats in Choppy Waters
c. 1630
Technical notes
The support is a single horizontally grained oak panel bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1594. The panel could have been ready for use by 1605, but a date in or after 1611 is more likely. The white ground is followed by a thin brown transparent layer as a mid-tone. The waves were modelled on top of this layer, partly wet in wet. A dark translucent brown was used in the shadows and a semi-opaque white layer in the lighter areas. In the final stage the artist applied a dark brown to accentuate some of the waves, followed by white brushmarks for the foam of the waves. There are fibres and fairly large pigment granules in the paint. Several thumbprints were left in the wet paint at the bottom of the panel.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 8 December 2004
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 29 April 2005
Condition
Fair. The painting is slightly abraded. The numerous retouchings and varnish are discoloured.
Provenance
...; from Dr A. Pauli, Amsterdam, fl. 300, to the museum, as a gift from the Fotocommissie, 1930
Object number: SK-A-3111
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jan Porcellis (Ghent before c. 1584 - Zoeterwoude 1632)
The marine artist, draughtsman and etcher Jan Porcellis was born in Ghent to Captain Jan Porcellis and Anna van Vaernewyck, the daughter of the sculptor Pieter van Vaernewyck. This Protestant family fled to the northern Netherlands around 1584. Since tradition has it that Porcellis was born while they were still in Flanders, it must have been before that year. Houbraken says that he was apprenticed to Hendrick Vroom. In 1605 he married Jacquemijntje Jansdr in Rotterdam. He is documented as being active in many places, successively in London (c. 1606), Middelburg (c. 1609), Antwerp (between 1615 and 1620), Haarlem (c. 1621-22), Amsterdam (1624-26) and Voorburg (1626). He finally moved to Zoeterwoude around 1627, where he died on 29 January 1632.
Porcellis was a feted artist during his own lifetime. His fairly monochrome works, known at the time as ‘greys’, clearly differ from the gaily coloured marines of the previous artistic generation. He took great pains over the depiction of the ambience and weather conditions, whereas painters like Vroom or Van Wieringen were mainly interested in depicting historical events, known ships and city skylines. Van Hoogstraeten describes a painting competition between Jan van Goyen, Franc¸ois van Knibbergen and Jan Porcellis. Each one had to complete a painting within a day.1 A number of art lovers then adjudged the results, proclaiming Porcellis the winner because of the naturalness of his work.2 Porcellis’s son Julius (c. 1610-45) was probably his pupil. His paintings are very difficult to tell apart from his father’s. Another of Porcellis’s apprentices was Hendrick van Anthonissen (1605-56).
Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007
References
Ampzing 1628, p. 37; Schrevelius 1648, p. 389; Van Hoogstraeten 1678, pp. 237-38; Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 213-14; Held in Thieme/Becker XXVII, 1933, p. 269; Walsh 1971, pp. 15-55; Kelch in Rotterdam 1996, pp. 145-46; Briels 1997, p. 369
Entry
Porcellis painted several fishing boats on a broad stretch of water with a town in the distance. It was by placing the horizon low down on the picture surface and leaving a lot of space for the sky that he distinguished himself from marine painters like Vroom and Van Wieringen. His technique was also fundamentally different from theirs. He worked remarkably quickly and with great assurance. He must have built up the waves in the water layer by layer very skilfully in several brief sessions. He suggests a great deal with only a few brushstrokes. The interplay of light between sky and water is extremely refined. The faces of the figures also appear to be more detailed than they in fact are. These stylistic and technical features are also found in other works by Porcellis from around 1630.3
There are several thumbprints that were left in the wet paint at the bottom of the scene. Porcellis took hold of the panel there while he was working and failed to remove the prints, which is another illustration of his rapid way of execution. Contemporary sources confirm that he could paint very quickly. For example, in Antwerp he undertook to produce two paintings a week for 20 weeks.4 Van Hoogstraeten wrote that Porcellis waited a long time before starting to paint. He first thought about the composition and then painted it swiftly.5
Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 245.
Literature
Walsh 1971, p. 233, no. A43
Collection catalogues
1934, p. 226, no. 1898a; 1976, p. 451, no. A 3111; 2007, no. 245
Citation
E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Jan Porcellis, Fishing Boats in Choppy Waters, c. 1630', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5078
(accessed 25 November 2024 22:52:55).