Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though trimmed. Cusping is visible on the left and right. Judging by the crack pattern the bars of the original strainer were approx. 6.5 cm wide.
Preparatory layers The thick, coarse ground extends over the tacking edges. It was applied in two to three layers varying in tone from brown to red, consisting of rounded brown, transparent and minute red pigment particles, and lead white and charcoal black particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light. The buildings and boats were left in reserve; the borders are generally carefully hidden with overlapping elements in the background. The figures and flags, though, were added on top of the background. Dark-grey undermodelling was used for the buildings and boats, a small corner of which is visible along the right side of the roof line of the building at the very back (to the left of the tree). Attention to detail is evident in the mortar delineating individual bricks. Thin, scumbled wisps of paint form characteristic yellow waves and grey clouds on the left. Infrared photography revealed a change in the composition: a group of three (or possibly five) three-quarter length men with hats originally stood conversing along the bottom edge, below and to the right of the central boat.
Gwen Tauber, 2022

Fair. There is strong cupping, and a great deal of abrasion in the paint of the sky (currently retouched).

…; ? anonymous sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 12 April 1759, no. 84, as by ‘HVAT’ (‘Een Rivier Gezigt met Scheepen, en een dorp in ’t verschiet’), fl. 14;¹¹Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD.…; ? anonymous sale, Amsterdam (C. Ploos van Amstel et al.), 24 September 1777, no. 1 (‘op Doek, hoog 38½ breed 61 duim [98.9 x 156.7 cm] […] Gezigt op de Rivier; aartig gestoffeerd met zeilende en dryvende Scheepen en roeijende Schuiten’), fl. 10, to J. Spaen;²²Copy FLNY.…; collection Jonkheer Adrianus Willem Gerrit van Riemsdijk (1803-1871), Maastricht and Utrecht, 1850;³³According to De Balbian Verster he had it in his possession around 1750, but that must be a misprint for 1850; J.F.L. de Balbian Verster, ‘De schilder Hendrick Anthonissen (1605 tot omtrent 1655)’, Eigen Haard 31 (1905), pp. 360-62. his son, Jonkheer Adriaan Daniël van Riemsdijk (1837-1897), Utrecht;⁴⁴C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, VI, Amsterdam 1864, p. 3. his mother, Jonkvrouw Wilhelmina Cornelia de Jonge (1814-1882);⁵⁵Tentoonstelling van zeldzame en belangrijke schilderijen van oude meesters, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Arti et Amicitiae) 1872, p. 2, no. 5, as Harbour Scene, probably in Zeeland Waters and ‘Gemerkt H.V.A.T. lengte 1.31. hoogte 99’. her son, Jonkheer Theodorus Helenus Franciscus van Riemsdijk (1849-1923), The Hague; donated from his estate by his daughter, M.L.A. Barnardiston, née van Riemsdijk, The Hague, to the museum, 1923; on loan to the Dutch Ministry of Defence since 1953

Object number: SK-A-2970

Credit line: Gift of M. Barnardiston-van Riemsdijk, The Hague

On the beach in the foreground is a passage boat, and a little further off a small warship, with another one, its sails reefed, at anchor beyond. At the quay there are fishing boats, a few of which are flying the Prince’s Flag. Until now the painting has been going under the title Shipping on the East Scheldt near the Zuidhavenpoort, Zierikzee. The tower on the right is indeed that of the Zuidhavenpoort gate. The broad stretch of water could be the Eastern Scheldt, if Hendrick van Anthonissen took the liberty of omitting the canal dug in the sixteenth century, beside which the port and gate lie in reality, which flows into the Eastern Scheldt. In the distance are the vague outlines of a town with several church towers. Given the location of the Zuidhavenpoort that could only be Goes with the nearby village of Kloetinge.

Van Anthonissen painted topographically recognizable views from the very start of his career. One early example is a beach scene near Scheveningen that can be dated to the late 1620s on the basis of the clothing of the figures.⁸⁸Antwerp, Museum Mayer van den Bergh; illustrated in S. Craft-Giepmans, Hollandse meesters: Catalogus van de schilderijen van Hollandse meesters, zeventiende en achttiende eeuw: Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Collectie Smidt van Gelder, coll. cat. Antwerp 2006, p. 52. He often depicted locations in Zeeland,⁹⁹Such as Stormy Sea with Fort Rammekens in the Background, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, and View of Veere, present whereabouts unknown. so Bol was probably right when he remarked that Van Anthonissen must have visited this province.¹⁰¹⁰L.J. Bol, Die holländische Marinemalerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Braunschweig 1973, p. 110. The artist’s son Arnoldus actually settled there in 1664. Bol assigned this canvas to the mid-1630s, but the influence of Simon de Vlieger, which is clearly evident in the subject of a harbour scene in calm weather and in the composition with its monumental emphasis, suggests dating it later, to the 1640s. De Beer even placed it around 1650 at the earliest.¹¹¹¹De Beer in G. de Beer, F. Ossing and J. van der Veen, The Golden Age of Dutch Marine Painting: The Inder Rieden Collection, coll. cat. London 2019, I, p. 81.

Jonkheer A.W.G. van Riemsdijk, who owned Ships near Zierikzee around the middle of the nineteenth century,¹²¹²See Provenance. had another large picture by Van Anthonissen, and according to Bredius this was its pendant.¹³¹³A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, II, The Hague 1916, p. 626. That work is no longer traceable, nor is there a known photograph of it. Without further information it is impossible to say for certain whether the present canvas had a companion piece, although Van Anthonissen definitely did produce paintings in pairs.¹⁴¹⁴For example, sale, Prenger et al., Amsterdam (J. Schulman), 8 May 1906 sqq., nos. 1118-19 (both signed).

Van Anthonissen’s paintings are usually much smaller and were undoubtedly made for the open market. This large, highly detailed piece, which Bredius praised as ‘one of the master’s most important works’, could very well have been a commission. The small three-master with the arms of Deventer on its ornately decorated stern could be the portrait of a real ship, and the admiralty to which it belonged could have ordered the picture. It cannot be identified for certain with one of the men-of-war named Deventer, all of which belonged to the Amsterdam Admiralty.

Eddy Schavemaker, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

J.F.L. de Balbian Verster, ‘De schilder Hendrick Anthonissen (1605 tot omtrent 1655)’, Eigen Haard 31 (1905), pp. 360-62; F.C. Willis, Die niederländische Marinemalerei, Leipzig 1911, pp. 42, 115; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, II, The Hague 1916, p. 626; L.J. Bol, Die holländische Marinemalerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Braunschweig 1973, p. 110

1926, p. 13, no. 366b (as Harbour View; 1934, p. 30, no. 366b (as Harbour View); 1976, p. 84, no. A 2970

Eddy Schavemaker, 2022, 'Hendrick van Anthonissen, Ships near Zierikzee with the Zuidhavenpoort in the Background, c. 1640 - c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108131