Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast

1667

Ludolf Backhuysen

Artist, Dutch, 1630 - 1708

Beyond several craggy boulders that loom in the lower left corner of this horizontal painting, three sailing ships pitch wildly in crashing waves beneath towering clouds. At the center, a large ship tips sharply to our right with billowing ivory sails and two red, white, and blue striped flags whipping in the wind. White spray kicks up against the side of the boat and in the waves surrounding it. The sails of the second ship, to our right, are furled except for one that crashes down onto the deck. Tiny people scurry around inside the ship, which tilts steeply up on a high wave. The third ship floats beyond this, its sails also tied up. The top of a tall wooden mast along with a broken wooden pole poke up from emerald-green waves in the lower right corner, near a barrel and two bundles wrapped in cloth and tied with rope that bob nearby. One of the brown, jagged rocks to our left nearly spans the height of the painting while others jut from the water like crooked teeth. A bank of billowing, slate-gray clouds at the center of the sky separates a fog-gray sky and puffy clouds to our right from a patch of golden sunlight to our left, in the upper corner of the canvas. The artist signed and dated the work as if written on a rock at the bottom center of the canvas, “LBackh 1667.”

Media Options

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The three cargo ships in this large painting are the type of wide-bellied, seagoing vessels used to transport much of the commodities that generated the wealth of the Dutch in the seventeenth century. Flying the red, white, and blue flag of the Dutch Republic, these floating symbols of national prosperity are nevertheless in peril of crashing on the rocky shore. Each ship has already lost a mast, and flotsam bobbing in the steely gray water in the foreground reveals that at least one ship has been wrecked. All is not yet lost, as the sun’s golden rays break through the ominous clouds—a signal to the struggling sailors that the storm is about to abate. The subject serves as a reminder that our earthly existence is fleeting. Although realistic in appearance, the painting combines elements that Backhuysen repeated often in his theatrical compositions. The complex shapes, sharp contrasts of light and shadow, ragged rocks, and violent waves all heighten the drama. The palpable tension of the scene belies the fact that this painting is the first known representation of a full-blown tempest in Backhuysen’s oeuvre.

A native of Germany, Backhuysen was trained by his father to be a scribe. In 1649 he moved to Amsterdam, where his beautiful calligraphy landed him a job as a clerk for one of the city’s most prominent merchants. His excellent draftsmanship led him to get trained as a painter, and success followed quickly. Backhuysen had a particular fascination with the effect of weather on the surface of the sea, which he depicted with great skill. He became Holland’s leading seascape artist during the last quarter of the seventeenth century, producing marine paintings for royal and noble patrons throughout Europe.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 49

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 114.3 x 167.3 cm (45 x 65 7/8 in.)
    framed: 147.3 x 146.1 x 6.4 cm (58 x 57 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1985.29.1

More About this Artwork

Article:  Painting Climate Change in the 17th Century

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Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast, 1667

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Arthur George, 3rd earl of Onslow [1777-1870], Richmond, and Clandon Park, near Guilford, Surrey;[1] his heirs; (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 22 July 1893, no. 24); (J.W. Vokins).[2] Siméon del Monte, Brussels, by 1928;[3] sold by his heirs at (sale, Sotheby's, London, 24 June 1959, no. 22); purchased by (P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London); (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 19 April 1985, no. 111); purchased by NGA.
[1] The Arthur George ownership comes from labels that were formerly affixed to the stretcher (now in NGA curatorial files).
[2] The buyer is noted in an annotated copy of the sales catalogue; copy in NGA curatorial files.
[3] Published in Gustav Glück, La Collection del Monte, Vienna, 1928: 22, pl. 41. An old label from the back of the painting (now in NGA curatorial files) also refers to the del Monte collection.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1932

  • Tentoonstelling van schilderijen door oud-hollandsche en vlaamsche meesters, Koninklijke Kunstzaal Kleykamp, The Hague, 1932, no. 41.

1990

  • Mirror of Empire: Dutch Marine Art of the Seventeenth Century, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts; The Toledo Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1990-1991, no. 4.

2005

  • Time and Transformation in Dutch Seventeenth Century Art, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, 2005-2006, no. 34, repro.

2018

  • Water, Wind, and Waves: Marine Paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2018, unnumbered brochure, fig. 9.

Bibliography

1928

  • Glück, Gustav. La Collection del Monte. Vienna, 1928: 22, pl. 41.

1986

  • Sutton, Peter C. A Guide to Dutch Art in America. Washington and Grand Rapids, 1986: 306.

  • Goedde, Lawrence Otto. "Convention, Realism, and the Interpretation of Dutch and Flemish Tempest Painting." Simiolus 16 (1986): 142.

1989

  • Goedde, Lawrence Otto. Tempest and Shipwreck in Dutch and Flemish Art: Convention, Rhetoric, and Interpretation. University Park, PA, 1989: 177, 202-204, fig. 161.

1990

  • Keyes, George S. Mirror of Empire: Dutch Marine Art of the Seventeenth Century. Exh. cat. Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Toledo Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Cambridge, England, 1990: 88-89, no. 4.

1991

  • Walsh, John, Jr. "Review: Los Angeles—Dutch Marine Art." The Burlington Magazine 133 (September 1991): 645–646, repro.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 15-18, color repro. 17.

  • Slive, Seymour, and Jakob Rosenberg. Dutch painting 1600-1800. Pelican History of Art. Revised and expanded ed. New Haven, 1995: 223-224, repro.

2002

  • Beer, Gerlinde de. Ludolf Backhuysen (1630 - 1708): sein Leben und Werk. Zwolle, 2002: 69, no. 26, pl. 71.

2003

  • Wilson-Bareau, Juliet, and David C. Degener. Manet and the sea. Exh. cat. Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Philadelphia, 2003: 9, fig. 8.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 189, no. 151, color repro.

2005

  • Kuretsky, Susan Donahue. Time and Tansformation in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. Exh. cat. Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville. Seattle, 2005: 76, 178-179, no. 34, repro.

2014

  • Wheelock, Arthur K, Jr. "The Evolution of the Dutch Painting Collection." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 50 (Spring 2014): 2-19, repro.

2016

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. " Sea change: The acquisition of Backhuysen's Ships in distress off a rocky coast at the National Gallery of Art, Washington." In Collecting for the Public: Works that Made a Difference. Essays for Peter Hecht. Edited by Bart Cornelis, Ger Luijten, Louis van Tilborgh, and Tim Zeedijk. Translated by Michael Hoyle. London, 2016: repro. (detail) 114, 115-116, 117 fig. 42, 118-119.

2020

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Clouds, ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2020: 27, 28, fig. 13.

Inscriptions

lower center on rock: LBackh / 1667

Wikidata ID

Q20177618

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