The painting has a modern plywood support. The original support was completely removed. The vertical impression left by a join and the craquelure, which is typical of a painting on panel, suggests that the original support was a panel consisting of two planks. The thinly applied ground layer is white. The ship was painted over the sea and sky. The paint layers are primarily smooth, with impasto being used for details such as the foam of the waves, the counter decoration of the ship and the houses in the background.

Poor. There are extensive losses and overpainting.

? Commissioned by or for the Oudezijdshuiszittenhuis, Oude Kerk Amsterdam; ? transferred with this institution to Leprozengracht, Amsterdam, 1655; first recorded in this institution in 1808;¹¹GAA, PA 349, Inventaris van de archieven tot 1808 van de colleges van regenten over het oudezijdshuiszittenhuis en over het nieuwezijdshuiszittenhuis en van 1808-70 van het college van regenten over de Huiszittendestadsarmen, inv. no. 6, Protocol van resolutiën 1781-89, p. 293: ‘No. 14 Een Stuk geschildert door … Verbeeldende een Schip in’t Lang te zien, hebbende het Wapen der Stad Amsterdam Van Agteren. Op Paneel’. transferred with this institution to the Nieuwezijdshuiszittenhuis, Prinsengracht, Amsterdam, 1808; transferred with this institution to the Armenhuis, Roetersstraat, Amsterdam, 1873; on loan to the museum from the City of Amsterdam since 2 October 1885

Object number: SK-C-453

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam

The greater part of the picture surface is taken up by a three-master, known as an East Indiaman, seen directly from astern. The ship’s prominence suggests that this is a portrait, but the lack of any truly distinctive elements makes it hard to identify. Hanging at the top of the mainmast is a Dutch flag, and the transom is adorned with the arms of Amsterdam. The town on the left is unidentifiable. The roofs of the houses by the quayside sparkling in the sunlight are attractively suggested with a few loose brushstrokes. The scene is very comparable to 16th and 17th-century prints of ship types. One of those in a suite by Frans Huys after Pieter Brueghel the Elder shows a ship from virtually the same angle as in this Rijksmuseum scene, and on the left there is also a town beside the water.⁴⁴Amsterdam 1980, p. 25, no. 1.

Neither the attribution nor the date of this painting is certain. De Verwer’s surviving oeuvre is small, and contains no truly comparable works. It was attributed to him immediately after its arrival in the Rijksmuseum in 1885, probably on the grounds of a general affinity with The Battle of the Zuider Zee (SK-A-603), which is both signed and dated. The panoramic view in that work probably indicates that it was painted earlier than this one. Comparison, however, is complicated by the fact that that painting is so much larger. One point worth noting is that the waves are depicted rather schematically. The painter rendered the foam with small white curls. However, this is not a distinguishing feature, as Vroom, Anthonisz and other early marine painters treated waves in the same way.

The painting has a provenance that probably goes back to the 17th century, when it was in Amsterdam’s Oudezijdshuiszittenhuis, the offices of the local Poor Relief Board.⁵⁵See Provenance.

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. 311.

1903, p. 284, no. 2546; 1934, p. 301, no. 2546; 1976, p. 577, no. C 453; 1992, p. 90, no. C 453; 2007, no. 311

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'attributed to Abraham de Verwer, An Amsterdam East Indiaman, c. 1625 - c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026875