The support, a plain-weave canvas, has been lined. The tacking edges have not been preserved, and cusping is only visible at the bottom. The paint was applied over a white ground, thinly in areas such as the sky and sea. Reserves were left for the larger ships, while the small ones were painted over the sea. The figures seem to have been painted in a final stage. Small pentimenti are present, for example in the positioning of the leg of one of the figures and the anchor.

Poor. The sky is severely abraded. The many old retouchings and the varnish are discoloured.

…; from H.A. Kuik-Visschersdam, Amsterdam, fl. 9,000, to the museum, with support from J.W. IJzerman, 1930

Object number: SK-A-3108

Credit line: Gift of J.W. IJzerman, The Hague

Several large ships are sailing just off the Dutch coast, with numerous figures standing on the beach and dunes. In the Rijksmuseum’s collection catalogue of 1934 it was suggested that the artist depicted the departure of the second fleet to the East Indies in May 1598 under the command of Jacob van Neck.²²Coll. cat. 1934, p. 311, no. 2606c; coll. cat. 1960, p. 336, no. 2606 A 5. However, there are no indications that the largest ship was one of the four that took part in the expedition.³³Letter from J. Braat, 9 October 1968, RMA. The ship’s stern is not visible, making it impossible to determine its name. It is for that reason that it is better to speak of East Indiamen setting sail. According to the 1976 catalogue, the large ship is the Mauritius, one of the ships that was on both the first and the second expeditions to the East Indies (cf. SK-A-2858).⁴⁴See Miedema 2000, pp. 267-68, for the Mauritius. It is suggested in the same catalogue that the ships are sailing in the Marsdiep, the channel between Den Helder and the island of Texel used by ships leaving Amsterdam for the East. However, there are no clearly recognizable landmarks to identify the site. The spectators include both fishermen and elegantly clad couples, who according to Keyes recall drawings by Hendrick Goltzius and Jacques de Gheyn II.⁵⁵Keyes 1975, I, p. 124, note 31. The elegant figures reminded Keyes of those in The Beached Sperm Whale by Goltzius that was engraved by Jacob Matham; Hollstein XI, 1954, p. 231, no. 317. Jacques de Gheyn was supposedly the inspiration for the fisherfolk; see Van Regteren Altena 1983, II, p. 92, no. 559, p. 144, no. 940, III, p. 110, figs. 204, 205, 223. The similarities, though, are no more than superficial.

This painting is very akin to others by Vroom. It has his typical palette, and the dark blue of the water constantly recurs in his work, as does the distinctive, rather stiff and archaic rendering of the waves. The ships are coming from every direction, which reinforces the sense of recession into depth.⁶⁶Keyes 1975, I, p. 29. In contrast to many other of his paintings, Vroom did not use a bird’s-eye perspective. The viewer is on the beach, as it were. It is difficult to date this picture, because there is no clear development in Vroom’s style. The use of a low or a high horizon is of no assistance, for he used both throughout his career (cf. SK-A-2858 and SK-A-602).

Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 334.

Bol 1973, p. 26; Keyes 1975, I, p. 29

1934, p. 311, no. 2606c; 1960, p. 336, no. 2606 A 5; 1976, p. 592, no. A 3108 (as The ‘Mauritius’ and Other East Indiamen Sailing out of the Marsdiep); 2007, no. 334

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Hendrik Cornelisz. Vroom, East Indiamen off a Coast, c. 1600 - c. 1630', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108390