The support is a single, horizontally grained oak panel. The left and right side of the panel are slightly bevelled, while the top and bottom have been trimmed a little. The ground is off-white. The paint layers are smooth. Impasto was used only for the highlights.

Fair. There are two stable cracks in the panel and partly in the paint layer. The retouchings and varnish are discoloured.

…; sale, H.G. Mulder (†), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 28 September 1869, no. 1, fl. 40, to C.F. Roos;…; sale, S.B. Bos (Harlingen), Amsterdam (F. Muller and Van Pappelendam & Schouten), 21 February 1888, no. 1, as Aart van Antum, fl. 205, to the museum¹¹RANH, ARS, IS, inv. 168, no. 286 (3 March 1888, no. 525); RANH, ARS, Kop, inv. 289, p. 172, no. 387 (7 March 1888).

Object number: SK-A-1446

In 1864 not only the signature but the date 1617 was visible on this painting,⁴⁴S.P.L. 1864, p. 79. but the latter has since vanished. According to the inscription on an old, possibly 18th-century label on the back of the painting, this is a depiction of the States’ yacht passing IJsselmonde, and the date is also given as August 1617. As Bol has rightly pointed out, however, the large ship in the background is not a yacht but a man-of-war.⁵⁵Bol 1973, pp. 38-39. owever, that is not necessarily true, as the terminology was not at all clear in the 17th century – a yacht could also be a warship.⁶⁶Oral communication, Jeroen ter Brugge, RMA, October 2024. There is a small yacht in the left foreground with Amsterdam’s coat of arms on its stern.

De Balbian Verster suggested that the large vessel might be De Eendraght in which explorer Willem Cornelisz Schouten and commander Jacob Le Maire discovered Cape Horn and the Straits of Le Maire.⁷⁷Coll. cat. 1934, p. 30, no. 369. In 1618 De Eendraght was part of the fleet that returned to the Netherlands. It is impossible to identify the large ship in the painting because its transom is not visible, so the occasion must also remain a mystery.

No authors have doubted the accuracy of the topographical information on the label. A drawing of the castle and church of IJsselmonde by Roeland Roghman shows buildings that are very similar to those in the background here.⁸⁸Illustrated in Van der Wyck/Niemeijer 1989, p. 234, no. 215; Kloek/Niemeijer 1990, pp. 58-59.

Aert Anthonisz painted the waves in this painting more skillfully than he did in The Battle of Cadiz (SK-A-1367). The reflections in the water, most notably of some of the flags, are very subtle but not faithful to reality, since a strong wind creates waves that break up reflections on the surface of water.⁹⁹With thanks to Wouter Kloek for drawing my attention to this.

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. 2.

S.P.L. 1864, p. 79; Willis 1911, p. 23; Bol 1973, pp. 38-39; Kloek/Niemeijer 1990, pp. 58-59; Giltaij in Rotterdam 1996, no. 17; Briels 1997, pp. 387-88

1903, p. 32, no. 369; 1934, p. 30, no. 369; 1960, p. 21, no. 369; 1976, p. 84, no. A 1446 (as The ‘Eendraght’ off IJsselmonde, 1618); 2007, no. 2

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Aert Anthonisz., Ships off IJsselmonde, 1617', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026496