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Ships Running Aground in a Storm

1690 · Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

landscape

While Dutch primacy in merchant shipping offered high rewards, its risks were equally significant. On their long journeys to the Mediterranean, the New World, Africa, and the East, merchant vessels were perennially endangered by warfare, piracy, treacherous shores, and storms. Several painters, most dramatically Ludolf Backhuysen, specialized in ships adrift in tempests.

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Ships Running Aground in a Storm

About the Artist

Ludolf Backhuysen

1630 – 1708

Dutch marine painter, active mainly in Amsterdam. After the van de Veldes moved to England in 1672, Backhuysen became the most popular marine painter in Holland. He captures the drama and movement of ships, but seldom achieves the poetic effects of either van de Velde the Younger or Jan van de Capelle.

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