File:A Ship in a Rough Sea RMG BHC0725.tiff
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Captions
Summary[edit]
Cornelis Verbeeck: A Ship in a Rough Sea | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Artist |
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Author |
Cornelisz Verbeecq |
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Title | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Object type |
painting object_type QS:P31,Q3305213 |
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Genre | marine art | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Description |
English: A Ship in a Rough Sea In this painting, Verbeeck takes up the established subject of ships sailing off a rocky coast in a gale, which appears in both Flemish and Dutch seascapes during the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Under a moderately clouded sky, four vessels are riding out gigantic, crested waves. The water, in the foreground, is plunged into deep shadow. Three of the vessels are seen in a lighter area close to the horizon, in the distance to left and right, all running before a moderate gale which is blowing from the right background. In the centre of the composition, the fourth is shown, in port-bow view, pitching in the waves on a rough sea. In the right foreground, a rocky coastline rises up. Wreckage and a barrel can be seen floating beneath the menacing cliffs. Waves crash against the ship from astern and figures in the rigging lower the fore and main yards, whose sails billow out accordingly. The spritsail and lateen mizzen sail are, also, furled. The pitch of the ship shows a number of figures on the deck and potential for disaster is implied by the proximity of the vessel to the rocks, which it is, however, managing to avoid. The dangers of a rocky shore are emphasized by the floating barrel and masthead, presumably from a ship already wrecked nearby. To the left, the whale raises its head out of the water and opens its ferocious mouth. The sailors, pictured as tiny figures on the deck of the vessel, are obviously trying to negotiate the dangers. The motif of the vessel endangered by a giant sea creature during a storm can be traced back to the art of the Bruegel family in the latter half of the sixteenth century. It was circulated in contemporary prints and appeared in seventeenth-century emblem literature. Sea monsters symbolized the terrors of the deep in a generally overwhelming universe. More specifically, sailors feared that whales would deliberately ram their ships. Therefore, the allegorical meaning of the motif, particularly when combined with the danger represented by the rocks, is part of a more complex iconography of divine supremacy and human insignificance and the need to lead a pious life (compare with BHC0749). The meaning of the barrel, though, may be understood separately. Popular belief saw it as a remedy for the threatening whale, which would be distracted by a barrel thrown overboard and swim after it. In 1604 Joachim Camerarius interpreted the sacrifice of the barrel as the necessity to sacrifice all one’s riches in order to save ones life. The painting demonstrates the intense human perseverance needed if disaster is to be averted and, thus, serves as a meditation on the struggles of mankind in a turbulent universe. The presence of rocks in Dutch marine paintings can, also, be seen as an allegorical warning of the threat posed by passion and the power of the storm to undermine and destroy, emblematic of the supreme power of God. The painting relates to Verbeeck’s small panel of the same subject (BHC0769) but, judging from its higher horizon, appears to have been painted slightly earlier. The artist, Cornelisz Verbeeck, was born in Haarlem in about 1590. He appears to have been a violent character continuously caught up in fights and stabbings, which have left us with considerable legal records. He became a member of the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem in 1610 and would have been familiar with the work of Hendrick Vroom and Jan Porcellis. The painter signed his work either 'CVB' or 'CVB H'. Only a small number of his paintings are known today, but it is evident that he specialized in beach scenes, ships on rough seas and historic maritime events. He died after 1637, most likely in Haarlem. |
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Date |
1620s date QS:P571,+1620-00-00T00:00:00Z/8 |
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Medium | oil on panel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dimensions | Frame: 510 mm x 635 mm x 60 mm;Overall: 6 kg;Painting: 395 x 510 mm | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Collection |
institution QS:P195,Q7374509 |
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Accession number |
BHC0725 |
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Notes | Within the Museum’s Loans Out Policy there is a presumption against lending panel paintings. Please consult Registration for further details. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
References | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source/Photographer | http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/12217 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Permission (Reusing this file) |
The original artefact or artwork has been assessed as public domain by age, and faithful reproductions of the two dimensional work are also public domain. No permission is required for reuse for any purpose. The text of this image record has been derived from the Royal Museums Greenwich catalogue and image metadata. Individual data and facts such as date, author and title are not copyrightable, but reuse of longer descriptive text from the catalogue may not be considered fair use. Reuse of the text must be attributed to the "National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London" and a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0 license may apply if not rewritten. Refer to Royal Museums Greenwich copyright. |
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Identifier InfoField | Acquisition Number: OP1951-45 Caird Catalogue Number (CCAT): CC V1(S); P233, 440 Spoliation ID: 22220 id number: BHC0725 |
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Collection InfoField | Oil paintings |
Licensing[edit]
This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain".
This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States. In other jurisdictions, re-use of this content may be restricted; see Reuse of PD-Art photographs for details. |
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Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
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current | 01:30, 19 September 2017 | 7,200 × 5,588 (115.11 MB) | Fæ (talk | contribs) | Royal Museums Greenwich Oil paintings (1620), http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/12217 #1002 |
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Height | 5,588 px |
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Pixel composition | RGB |
Image data location | 140 |
Number of components | 3 |
Number of rows per strip | 5,588 |
Bytes per compressed strip | 120,700,800 |
Data arrangement | chunky format |