Ludolf Backhuysen (1630-1708) "Ships in a Storm", 1694

About the Item

Ludolf Backhuysen (Emden 1630-1708 Amsterdam) "Ships in a Storm", 1694 Dated, on the floating chest: 1694 Oil on canvas, 58½ x 88½ in. (149 x 225 cm) Provenance: Sale, Amsterdam (1694); Collection Czar Peter the Great, St. Petersburg (1697-1725); Collection Peterhof Palace, Marly Gallery, St. Petersburg (1725-1917); M.E. Perchenko, Moscow, 1980s; Mikhail De Boire (Yelizavetin), Moscow, 1990s; By inheritance, widow's private collection, Moscow, until 2014; Anon. sale, Europe gentleman's estate; We are grateful to Dr. Gerlinde De Beer, the author of a monograph and catalogue raisonné on master Ludolf Backhuysen, to providing a note about the painting. This stormy and tempestuous marine landscape is one of the most exciting paintings by Ludolf Backhuysen to come onto the art market in recent years. Dated 1694, the painting was completed when the artist was at the height of his career as arguably Amsterdam’s leading marine painter. The quality encountered in this painting is testament to Backhuysen’s abilities in capturing the mood and atmosphere of stormy seas. The dark foreboding water, contrasted against a characteristically dramatic cloud-filled sky, displays a myriad of different tones and colours from deep blacks and blues to lighter greens and browns. The painter’s observation of the breaking waves and frothy spray is undertaken with such finesse and truth to nature. A consideration of these fine details supports Ludolf Smids’s (1649–1720) remark that ‘Forsooth, ’tis water not paint; I hear it foaming’. Provenance: This painting formed a part of the celebrated Peterhof Palace collection, largely assembled by Czar Peter I (Peter the Great), Tsar of all Russia from 1682, and the first Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. Description of paintings by one of the prominent Dutch marine artists of the 17th-18th centuries, Ludolf Backhuysen (1631-1708), is present in the catalog of the renowned Russian collector P.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky published in 1906, titled "Study of the Works of Dutch Artists and the Dutch School of Art in Public and Private Collections." In his work, Semenov-Tyan-Shansky writes that in the galleries of Peterhof palace, in addition to such famous Dutch painters as William de Velde, Miller, Stork, Vlieger and other authors, there are 4 paintings by Ludolf Backhuysen, including the painting "Storm," which was initially located in the Marly Gallery. The Marly Gallery in Peterhof was one of the earliest art galleries, personally curated by Peter the Great. It was formed from paintings acquired during Czar Peter I's second embassy to the Netherlands in 1716-1717. During the year of 1716 alone, the representatives of Czar Peter I, O. A. Solovyov and Y. I. Kologrivov, bought more than 120 paintings in Netherlands. Large size format paintings were uncharacteristic for the “lesser-known Dutch masters” – most of the paintings were painted in smaller cabinet-size format. Nevertheless, in the “Collection of extracts from archival papers of Peter I” there is a mention of the purchase of two large paintings in Amsterdam in 1716. The painting dated 1694 "Storm" could have been acquired by Peter I during either his first visit to the Netherlands in 1697-1698 or his second visit in 1716-1717, after Ludolf Bakhuizen's death. Later, after the death of Peter I, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Peterhof gallery collection underwent several reformations, with collections moving to other palaces and estates. Likewise, many of the works ended up in private collections. After the October Revolution in 1917, many paintings from the Peterhof galleries were also sold. In the 1980s, the painting "Storm" was acquired by the prominent international collector Mikhail Perchenko. In the 1990s, another renowned collector, Mikhail de Boir, began assembling a collection of Dutch marine artists, including Ludolf Bakhuizen. His collection included paintings by such world-famous Dutch artists as William de Velde and Adrian van Utrecht. Mikhail de Boir expanded his collection by acquiring the painting “Storm”, painted by the artist L. Backhuysen in 1694. After de Boir's death, part of the collection, including the painting "Storm," remained with his wife. In 2014 the painting was acquired by a collector from a prominent European family. Attribution: According to Arnold Houbraken, Bakhuizen learnt to paint in oils from the marine painters Hendrick Dubbels and Allaert van Everdingen. He was a recognised marine painter by 1658, the year in which he painted the background with ships for Bartholomeus van der Helst’s Portrait of a Lady (Brussels, Musée des Arts Anciens), although he did not join the Amsterdam guild of painters until 1663. Thereafter, however, his fame as a marine specialist was rapidly established, winning him, for example, the commission in 1665 from the burgomaster of Amsterdam of a View of Amsterdam and the IJ (Paris, Musée du Louvre), intended as a diplomatic gift for Hugues de Lionne, King Louis XIV’s Foreign Minister. His success brought him to the attention of many of the leading patrons of Europe, including Grand Duke Cosimo III de’ Medici, King Frederick I of Prussia, the Elector of Saxony, and Tsar Peter the Great, who all visited his studio; indeed, Peter the Great was reputed to have taken drawing lessons from him. Houbraken underlined how Bakhuizen was attracted in particular to painting storms and his oeuvre is dominated by work that showed the ever-changing skies of the Netherlands, often in inclement conditions. As described by Dr. Gerlinde de Beer in her certification: "The main motif of this painting is a ship in the center of the picture. This ship is at the bow hit by extremely high waves. This image area is represented by the one from the top left incident light highlighted so that a number of details on the ship can be seen. The upper parts of two of the apparently four masts have broken off. Of the two Dutch flags fly from the rear masts. The folds of the two are still intact, lower sails indicate that the ship is in the wind and is probably due to the maneuver of the Cruising wants to come hard into the wind. In the transom, the flat surface at the top On the outside of the rear, a figurative representation can be clearly seen. Consequently, in depicted in the field of Hercules, who holds the dangerous Cretan bull by the horns packs. This is the seventh task from the mythology of the Twelve Tasks of Hercules. The mostly open ports indicate that the ship is only has deck guns and is therefore a merchant ship were more lightly armed than warships. In the front left corner of the picture, a sailboat is lifted up by a high wave. The boat is darkly shaded and therefore cannot be determined as a type. In the left another ship sails in the distance. In front of a brightly lit ship in the right background a flute can be seen. The Fleute was the most popular trading ship in the 17th century the Netherlands because it had a large capacity. Accordingly, Backhuysen depicted a fleet of merchant ships in a storm. The sailing boat on the left in front indicates that the one vaguely visible at the back on the right The mainland is not far away. In the sky are towering shades of gray, to which a threatening-looking red is added, high clouds that move in the correct rhythm combine with the wave crests to create an impressive natural spectacle. The painting is an exemplary example of the art of the marine painter Ludolf Backhuysen. Backhuysen's success during his lifetime and his fame that continues to this day are primarily reflected its turbulent seas and its sea storms and shipwrecks. Characteristics of the late creative phase of this picture by Backhuysen, dated 1694 can be seen in all areas, such as in the depiction of the ships and the heavy storming Water, cloud cover, the convincing interaction of the elements, as well as the Lighting and color. The majority of paintings and drawings depict sea storms and shipwrecks of the master have come down to us from his late period. Dated examples of these works are from 1684 to 1705. There are several paintings with these themes small-format works, but especially the sea storms created since the 1690s are almost without exception painted on a large format, in which the height of the picture - as in the work discussed here – is already in the three-digit centimeter range. Painting with These dimensions were not painted in advance, but were commissioned also applies to the sea storm discussed here. Design references to this sea storm from the former de Boire collection can be found to Backhuysen's two most famous sea storms, which occurred in public Collections are located. These are the storm on a mountain coast (canvas, 173.5 x 341 cm, signed: LBACKHU…, around 1670, Brussels, Musée des Beaux Arts) and ships in the storm (Canvas, 150 227 cm, monogrammed: LB, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). As on these Like the two sea storms, the sea storm from the former de Boire collection also depicts the wildly raging sea in an alternation of broad wave valleys and enormously high wave crests with only a few ships. However, the sea storm discussed here differs in one important respect from the two related works mentioned above, of which the Brussels painting was created around twenty years earlier and the work in the Rijksmuseum around ten years later: in the sea storm from the de Boire Collection, the mainland plays a decidedly subordinate role. Together with a related depiction of the sea and the ships, this type of sea storm is only known to me from one other painting, which is rather small in format and was also formerly in a Russian collection. This type of picture of a sea storm, on the other hand, in which no or hardly any land is depicted, appears more frequently in Backhuysen's drawings. In the Teylers Museum in Haarlem there is a drawing by the artist with motifs on the front and back. On the reverse, Backhuysen drew a ship whose bow is surrounded by foaming storm seas from a very similar perspective to the large ship in the painting discussed here." Described by the artists’ biographer Arnold Houbraken as “diligent, quiet and sober, commendable by nature and modest with all,” the German-born Dutch painter Ludolf Backhuysen (or Bakhuizen) began his career as a draftsman in the town of Emden in the east of the Province of Friesland. In 1649, at the age of eighteen, he moved to Amsterdam, where he was active as a clerk for the trading firm of the wealthy merchant Guillielmo Bartolotti van den Heuven, also from Eemden. He was recorded as a calligrapher and from 1650 worked as a draftsman, producing grisailles, and pen paintings possibly derived from Willem van de Velde the Elder’s (1610/11-1693) pen drawings of the 1650s. Backhuysen was also a printmaker. Backhuysen’s earliest dated oil painting is from 1658; however, he did not become a member of the Amsterdam Guild of Saint Luke until 1663. According to Houbraken, he was initially self-taught, but later trained as a painter under Allaert van Everdingen (1621-1675) and Hendrick Dubbels (1621-1707), though no records of any apprenticeship survive. In his own time, he counted several marine painters among his pupils and exerted an influence on Abraham Storck (1644-1708). Backhuysen died following a protracted illness and was buried in Amsterdam’s Westerkerk on 17 November 1708. His appreciation of the ‘sublime’ in nature resonated later in the work of the English Romantic artist J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). A stormy seascape by Backhuysen “the master of thunder-clouds” was a must in any eighteenth-century collection of Dutch paintings. While his oeuvre includes portraits of members of his family – for instance of his third wife Alida Greffet, who ran a lucrative silk business – and of patrons, he became best known for his marine paintings, which were decisively influenced by his teachers as well as Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707). Moreover, his earliest works exhibits a silvery grey tonality and simple compositions reflecting the impact of Simon de Vlieger (1601-1653). A chronicler of daily life along the Dutch shores and of major maritime events, Backhuysen developed into a leading master of dramatic seascapes, scenes of tempests, and stormy skies. He first recorded these in quick sketches, which he later used for paintings back in his studio. His star rose from 1658 onwards and he garnered greater recognition as a marine painter while also providing backgrounds with ships in works by Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613-1670), including the 1668 Portrait of Vice Admiral Johan de Liefde (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Two years later, the mayor of Amsterdam commissioned a View of Amsterdam and the IJ River (Louvre, Paris) from him for the hefty sum of 1275 florins, which was presented as a diplomatic gift to Hugues de Lionne, minister of foreign affairs under Louis XIV. After 1672, when Willem van de Velde the Elder and his son Willem the Younger emigrated to England, Backhuysen arguably became the Netherlands’ premier painter of marines. He received commissions, and visits, from the most important patrons of the time, including the grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de Medici, the king of Prussia, Frederick I, the elector of Saxony, and Tsar Peter the Great of Russia. His social standing is also clear from his friends, well-regarded artists and poets, and his fourth wife likewise came from a prominent family. Houbraken explained the measure the artist took to ensure the naturalism of his compositions, including going out in a launch into stormy waters to observe them. Marked by contrast and dramatic alternation of light and dark and the use bright colors our marine is representative of the artist’s works from the 1690s, a highly productive period epitomized by the signed and 1697 dated Stormy Sea with Ships (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). His virtuoso rendering of breaking waves and frothy spray was summed up by the poet Ludolf Smids (1649-1720) as follows “Forsooth, tis water not paint: I hear it foaming.” Biography: The son of Gerhard Backhusen and his wife Margarete Janssen, Ludolf Backhuysen was born in the German town of Emden on 28 December 1630. He trained as a clerk in his native town before moving to Amsterdam in 1649, where he was first employed by the Bartolotti trading house. Soon after moving to Amsterdam, he began to pursue his artistic interests, first as a calligrapher and then as a draughtsman of pen drawings, primarily of marine subjects on prepared canvas, panel and parchment. These works were probably inspired by the pen paintings of Willem van de Velde the Elder. According to the artists’ biographer Arnold Houbraken, Backhuysen learnt to paint in oils from Allart van Everdingen and Hendrick Dubbels, but there is no documentary proof of this. His early monochromatic works also show the influence of Simon de Vlieger. Whatever the case, by the early 1660s Backhuysen had become an established painter. In1663, he enrolled in the Amsterdam Guild of St. Luke and quickly made a name for himself. On 14 June 1665 the burgomaster of Amsterdam commissioned him to paint a View of Amsterdam and the Ij, intended as a diplomatic gift for Hugues des Lionne, Louis XIV’s Foreign Minister. For this painting, now in the Louvre, Paris, the artist received 1300 guilders - a considerable sum in those days - plus a gold ducat for his wife. Shortly after this he must have set up his own workshop. His several pupils included Pieter Coopse, Abraham Storck, Gerrit Pompe and Jan Claesz. Rietschoof.

Dimensions:
Width: 88.59 in (2,250 mm)Length: 58.67 in (1,490 mm)
Place of Origin:
Netherlands
Period:
17th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1694
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. Minor losses.
Seller Location:
Oakton, VA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2758222766792
View Invoice