Jan Theunisz. Blanckerhoff was admitted to the Alkmaar St. Luke’s Guild as a self-standing master on October 18, 1649. According to Houbraken, he later stayed in Rome two or three times. There the artist acquired the nickname Jan Maat among Dutch painters.

In any case, by 1659 Blanckerhoff was back in the homeland as he got married in Amsterdam on April 5, 1659.

During the Second English War (1664-1667), the artist went out twice with the Staatse vloot in 1665 and in 1666. He was paid as a midshipman and was allowed to eat meals in the cabin with the captain.(i)

According to Houbraken, in the spring of 1669 Blanckerhoff is said to have embarked on the fleet of the Count of Waldeck to drive the Turks out of Candia, and on October 2 of 1669 the artist was buried in the Westerkerkhof in Amsterdam.

The most important painting that Blanckerhoff painted was “The Battle of the Zuiderzee, off the roadstead of Hoorn. (In custody of the Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst Den Haag).

This important painting with perhaps the most beautiful seventeenth-century carved frame that has survived was ordered in 1663 for 800 guilders by the Committeerde Raden of Westfriesland and the Noorderkwartier (ii). A considerable sum in those years.

Our painting is the second important work by Blanckerhoff. One can find in Blanckerhoff’s oeuvre the influences of Jan Porcellis and Simon de Vlieger and we can place his work in the so-called gray or tonalist school. Blanckerhoff’s oeuvre appears small but can be expanded with paintings that are currently wrongly attributed to L. Backhuysen, A. van Everdingen, and A. Smit, among others.