Lot 127A
LUDOLF BACKHUYSEN (DUTCH 1630-1708)
Ships in a Storm, 1694
oil on canvas
148.6 x 226.1 cm (58 1/2 x 89 in.)
framed dimensions: 168.9 x 246.4 cm (66 1/2 x 97 in.)
unsigned; lower left dated on a floating sea chest
PROVENANCE
Collection of Mikhail Perchenko, by the 1980s
Collection of Mikhail de Boire, by the 1990s
Estate of Mikhail de Boire, 2009
Collection of Nikoloz Saakashvili
thence by descent in the family
EXPERTISE
Sold with a signed letter of expertise from Dr. Gerlinde de Beer, author of
Ludolf Bakhuysen (1630-1708): Sein Leben und Werk, Berembur, 18.10.2023 (copy available upon request)
With certification from the Art Loss Register (copy available upon request)
LOT NOTES
The painting offered here, "Ships in a Storm," a grand and impressive painting, could have been commissioned by a foreign potentate. According to Backhuysen's biographer, Arnold Houbraken, Backhuysen was visited and patronized by Cosimo III de'Medici, Friedrerich I, and Tsar Peter the Great, amongst others. Peter the Great is said to have had taken drawing lessons from the artist, and there are known to have been four Backhuysen paintings at the collection of Peterhof palace (ref. P.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, "Study of the Works of Dutch Artists and the Dutch School of Art in Public and Private Collections," 1906).
CONDITION
The painting is not relined. There are tacking edges holding the original canvas to the stretcher. Four patches of varying sizes are on the verso. The paint layer is clean and the paint surface is stable. There is a c. 1-2 cm small area of flaking upper left, and some bumping to the lower right corner of the canvas near the frame. Inspection under UV light reveals scattered areas of light retouching and some overpainting in the background. A video of a UV light inspection can be provided upon request. Fine and stable craquelure throughout. Overall in good restored condition.
The following cataloguing information and analysis of the current painting
Ships in a Storm, was provided by Dr. Gerlinde de Beer:
Spread across the expanse of the open sea, several three-masted trade ships, knownas merchantmen, and a coastal vessel are fighting for their existence. The ragingelements are depicted in threatening gray and reddish tones. The whiteness offoaming waves in the center of the image heightens the drama at sea. It depicts amerchant fleet torn apart by the storm. A single row of guns from the three-mastedship in the center of the picture and the design of the ship in the right middleground provide evidence that merchant ships are depicted here. The ship on theright, with its pear-shaped hull and constricted stern, is a fluitschip, a merchant shipdeveloped by the Dutch whose design was specifically aimed for large capacity.
In the left foreground a sailing boat can be seen in shadow, contrasted against thelight. The presence of the unseaworthy vehicle indicates that a coast is not far off.In the distance to the right and left are more three-masters with broken or cutmasts. In the present work, the focus is the three-master located in the center of thepicture. High-rising and wildly foaming waves shoot up at its bow and push theship up into the air; like the tentacles of a giant octopus, the tongues of spray reachfor the foredeck. The ship's foremast is broken off. Behind this three-mastedmerchantman, is another ship with its mainmast broken and its main top fallingstraight down.
Ludolf Backhuysen owed his fame to his stormy seascapes and turbulent seapictures, of which the present work is a prime example. Ships in a Storm is clearlydated 1694 on a floating sea chest, and was created during Backhuysen's latecreative period, from which most of the artist's known sea storm and shipwreckpictures come. The artist's earliest known work in this genre is Ships in Distress offa Rocky Coast, dated 1667 (inv. no. 1985.29.1, National Gallery of Art,Washington D.C.). It is very likely that Backhuysen had already paintedtreacherous seas before Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast, because by thebeginning of the 1660s, his innovative style characterized by dynamic movementof the clouds and waves, depiction of seafaring merchantmen, strongly contrastingcolor, and precise drawing, was already present. These stylistic features are evidentin his earliest known painting Turbulent Sea in Evening Light, dated 1658 (inv. no.G 1587, Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig). No dated sea storm works byBackhuysen are known from the 1670s and 1680s, although a few works with thistheme can be stylistically assigned to these decades. These include the artist'slargest known work, Storm off a Rocky Coast, in the Musée royaux des beaux-artsin Brussels (inv. no. 1481).
The decorative elements on the central three-master in the present work, Ships in aStorm, indicate that Backhuysen was referring to contemporary events. Thedecoration on the ship's transom shows the hero of Greek mythology, Herakles,famous for his strength, grabbing the Cretan bull by the horns in an early steptowards taming it. To the left of this, on the side of the ship and at the same heightis the crowned coat of arms of Amsterdam held by two rampant lions. Bothdecorations probably refer to the War of the Palatinate Succession (1688-1697), inwhich the Netherlands was involved. In 1694, the year the picture was painted, theFrench privateer Jean Bart recaptured a French convoy from the Dutch during thenaval Battle of Texel. In his sea storm pictures, Backhuysen often used symbolismcommon since antiquity, in which a ship represents a maritime state; a ship indistress symbolizes a state in danger. Backhuysen's allusions of this kind are almostwithout exception patriotic. For example, the ship in the center of the present workpitching through the heavy sea, has a good chance of surviving the storm. Themain mast and mizzen are intact, as are the lower sails; and the wind direction andthe position of the sails indicate that the ship is sailing before the wind and ridingout the storm. The symbolism of an Amsterdam merchantman persevering througha storm in turbulent seas is found in a smaller work from the same period, A ThreeMaster with the Amsterdam Coat-of-Arms with Other Vessels in a Storm; as well asStorm off a Rocky Coast, in the Musée royaux des beaux-arts in Brussels. (inv. no.1481), and Warships in a Heavy Sea, ca. 1705 in the Rijksmuseum (inv. SK-A-4856). note 1
In addition to the monumental dimensions and the fine, detailed paintingtechnique, the subject matter and its allusion to contemporary events indicate thatthis work was commissioned, and consequently has parallels in two respects toBackhuysen's work mentioned above, the Storm off a Rocky Coast in the Muséedes Beaux-arts in Brussels. In that painting, a three-masted ship, its stern bearingthe decoration of the Batavian lion and one of its masts flying the Dutch nationalflag, is threatened to be swallowed by foaming waves. It was probably createdaround 1675 and commemorates the events of the year 1672, known as Rampjaar(Disaster Year) in Dutch history. In this year, the country was at war with itspowerful England and France, and French troops occupied large parts of thecountry. The commissioner of Backhuysen's Storm off a Rocky Coast was noneother than King Willem of Orange (The Hague, 1650 - Kensington, 1702), whosuccessfully repelled the French king's troops. note 2
The artist's biographer Arnold Houbraken mentions numerous crowned heads whowere said to have visited Backhuysen in his studio. note 3 The author goes into furtherdetail about Tsar Peter the Great, referring to him as "de grote Czaar vanMoskovien." Russia and the Netherlands had enjoyed fruitful trade relations withone another since the early 17th century, and the tsar had previously communicatedin writing with the regents of Amsterdam. Peter the Great made his first journey toWestern Europe from Moscow on March 9, 1697, arriving in Amsterdam onAugust 18th. note 4 According to Houbraken, the tsar visited Backhuysen's studio, andthe artist drew various ships for him as the tsar was interested in learningshipbuilding. If, according to Houbraken, the tsar's visit to Backhuysen's studiotook place, then it could only have been in 1697, three years after the current workwas created. It has been suggested that this work, Ships in a Storm, wascommissioned by Peter the Great; however, at this point, there is no evidence thatthe tsar commissioned this painting nor any evidence dismissing the possibility thatit was commissioned by him at an earlier time.
Ludolf Backhuysen, born on December 28, 1630, in the northern German city ofEmden; he moved to Amsterdam around 1649. Backhuysen must have alreadybeen taught calligraphy in his homeland prior to his arrival in Amsterdam, wherehe initially worked as an accountant for the wealthy merchant Guillelmo Bartolotti.He quickly started drawing and undertook apprenticeships with the painters Allaertvan Everdingen (1621-1675) and Hendrick Dubbels (1621-1676). Inspired by theart of Willem van de Velde the Elder, he initially created grisaille pen and inkdrawings on canvas or wood. The artist's earliest known work is a grisaille dated1656; the artist's earliest known painting, Turbulent Sea in Evening Light, is dated1658 (Leipzig). An apprentice of Backhuysen is mentioned in documents as earlyas 1660. Le Port d'Amsterdam, vu de l'Ij (A View of Amsterdam) (Louvre, Paris),commissioned by the four mayors of Amsterdam, and presented to the Frenchforeign minister Hugues de Lionne brought the artist his international breakthroughin 1665. Soon after, the style of his predominantly stormy and turbulent seascapesinfluenced all subsequent marine painting. Ludolf Backhuysen died on November7, 1708, in Amsterdam.
1 De Beer states that the patriotic symbolism of a three-masted merchantman riding out a stormin turbulent seas evoked in the present work is shared with the storm motif in the large and later dated painting by Backhuysen, Warships in a Heavy Sea, Rijksmuseum, (inv. SK-A-4856);Storm off a Rocky Coast, Musée royaux des beaux-arts, Brussels (inv. no. 1481); and a smallerwork by the artist from the same period of a three-masted merchantman bearing the Amsterdamcoat-of-arms (email correspondence, 14 January 2025). See Christie's, London in April 25, 2008(https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5063435?ldp_breadcrumb=back).
2 See the painting Ships in a Storm off a Rocky Coast in the Musée royaux des beaux arts,Brussels: G. de Beer, Ludolf Backhuysen (1630-1708), His life and work, Zwolle 2002, pages 81-85.
3 Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilds en schildessen [...] 3vols., The Hague 1718-1721, (second edition: The Hague 1753, facsimile editions of the secondedition: Amsterdam 1976, and Amsterdam 1995), Part II, pages 240 (236-244).
4 On Peter the Great's journey to Western Europe, and particularly his stay in Amsterdam, see:Gerlinde de Beer, with contributions by F. Ossing and J. van der Veen: The Golden Age of DutchMarine Painting, The Inder Rieden Collection, 4 vols, Leiden 2019, pages 98-1008, catalog no.64.
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