Dutch Yacht Firing a Salvo

landscape

Jan van de Cappelle is today considered to be one of the greatest of Dutch marine painters. According to a contemporary he was self-taught but he clearly took as his models Simon de Vlieger and Jan Porcellis, works by both of whom were in his own large collection of paintings and drawings. Porcellis had been the first marine painter to break with the dominant Mannerist style of Hendrick Vroom, in whose paintings elaborately described two-dimensional ships were tossed on the top of bright green waves.

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About the Artist

Jan van de Cappelle

1626 – 1679

Dutch marine and landscape painter. He was a wealthy Amsterdam dyer who taught himself to paint during his spare time, but there is nothing of the Sunday painter in this work. Typically his paintings show handsome vessels on calm rivers or seas; they have a grandeur of composition, a limpid quality of light, and an exquisite sense of tonality that places them among the finest marine paintings of any time or place. Cappelle also painted winter landscapes and beach scenes. His work is rare; the best collection is in the National Gallery in London. He was affluent enough to make a distinguished art collection.

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