JAN PORCELLIS

Shipping on the North Sea off the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling

We are looking south from the North Sea. On the left is the north-west coast of the island of Terschelling, with the ‘Kaapse Duin’ and its light beacon. A few ships are at anchor or setting sail off the island in the distance. On the right is the island of Vlieland with the old parish church of the village of West-Vlieland. The village fell prey to the waves in the course of the seventeenth century. The church met the same fate in 1704. There are two three-masters moored close to the shore.

In the centre of the painting are two English three-masters flying the pennant of St George, and a Dutch three-master coming from ‘t Vlie, the passage to the Wadden Sea between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. This was a busy sea route to and from the North Sea. The ships seen in the distance are sailing in convoy because of the treacherous waters of the Wadden Sea and the North Sea. For the most part it is an English merchant fleet approaching from the Vlie. Perhaps a deliberate choice, since Porcellis lived and worked for some time in England.

It is possible that back on the mainland he still had a short line of communication with the English art trade and the English buying public, so it is quite possible that the painting was a commission from a wealthy English patron.

The ship on the far left is an early type of Wijdtschip, a Dutch merchant and inland vessel with a tow boat. This one has its bow almost to the wind. There was a vigorous tidal current here as a result of the strait of the Vlie meeting the North Sea.

On the right, there is a small vracht-kaghe or ketch, a flat-bottomed vessel with two masts and the mizzen mast stepped before the rudder head. There are also three porpoises heading to the deeper waters. Further on is a small fishing vessel, with a sailor wielding a boathook. He is pulling in a barrel although it remains out of view in the painting. That they are in the process of placing barrels in the fairway may explain why a barrel can be seen directly behind the vessel as well as in the middle of the scene.

Since several maps of the Vlie show that even far from the coast of the islands there were concrete markings to indicate shallows and channels, it is possible that Porcellis (in addition to the sailing of the merchant fleet) also wanted to use the wijdtschip and the kaag to represent the activity and bustle of the channel. Even the little barrel in the middle is therefore appropriate and not exclusively intended to create more depth.

Jan Porcellis opted for a high horizon in the painting so as to properly display the choppy sea with its tidal currents. He brilliantly captured the atmosphere of the wild sea and fast-changing clouds in stormy weather using subtle shades of grey and a harmonious symphony of browns and silvery whites. Sky and water are united by a silvery-grey tone that almost tangibly conveys the atmosphere saturated with moisture and light. The painting gives the impression of a huge maritime expanse extending beyond the edges of its canvas.

This masterpiece sums up the accomplishments of Jan Porcellis, that great pioneer of seascape painting, and explains why he was hailed as the foremost marine painter of his day. It can be dated around 1625 because in this painting, he has perfected his revolutionary style. ‘Shipping on the North Sea off the coasts of the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling’, previously unrecorded, is probably one of Porcellis’ largest and most ambitious works, a major rediscovery in the artist’s oeuvre and an important addition to our knowledge of Dutch maritime activity in the 17th century.

The painting is called a major rediscovery of the “greatest maritime painter” by Prof. Gerlinde de Beer and will be included in her forthcoming monograph.