01 CLASSIC WORKS OF ART, MARINE PAINTINGS – WITH FOOTNOTES, #52C

 Hendrik Cornelisz. Vroom, 

The Return to Amsterdam of the Second Expedition to the East Indies, c, 1599

Oil on canvas

h 102.3cm × w 218.4cm

The Dutch first reached the Indonesian archipelago in 1596. But it was the second attempt, in 1598, that was a commercial triumph. As stated in the inscription on the frame, ‘trade was planted there’ at that time. The first step towards the success of the future VOC had been taken. It was a truly joyous occasion when the fully laden ships dropped anchor again in Amsterdam’s harbour in 1599.

The return in Amsterdam of the second expedition to the East Indies, the so-called Second Ship, headed by Jacobus van Neck, on July 19, 1599. The four large ships Mauritius, Hollant, Overijssel and Vrieslant on the IJ surrounded by many small boats and fully laden rowing boats. The profile of Amsterdam in the far right.  More on this painting

Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom (c.1562 – February 4, 1640 (buried)) was a Dutch Golden Age painter credited with being the founder of Dutch marine art. Beginning with the “birds-eye” viewpoint of earlier Netherlandish marine art, his later works show a view from lower down, and more realistic depiction of the seas themselves. 

Vroom was born in Haarlem. Much of what is known of his life comes from his biography by Karel van Mander. Vroom was born into a family of artists and began his career as a pottery painter and when his mother remarried, he boarded a ship for Spain and from thence via Livorno and Florence to Rome.

In Florence he was patronized by Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, later Grand Duke of Tuscany. While there he became a pupil of Paulus Bril. He went back and forth to Venice, where he earned money as a majolica painter.

When he returned north, he travelled via Milan, Genoa, Albisola. From there he travelled to Paris, and from there he went to Rouen, where he became mortally ill but was saved by a woman who bandaged his head. There he boarded a ship homewards and was back in Haarlem in 1590.

During his next journey, this time to Portugal, he survived shipwreck, but was threatened with execution as “an English pirate” – from which he was saved by being recognized as a Catholic from his salvaged devotional paintings, which convinced the monks on the beach that he and his companions were not “heathen Protestants”

Haarlem Vroom died in Haarlem, in his late seventies. More on Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom

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