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Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 –1708) was a German-born Dutch painter, draughtsman, calligrapher and printmaker. He was the leading Dutch painter of maritime subjects after Willem van de Velde the Elder and Younger left for England in 1672. He also painted portraits of his family and circle of friends.
He was born in Emden, East Frisia, and came to Amsterdam in about 1650, working as a merchant's clerk and a calligrapher. He discovered so strong a genius for painting that he relinquished the business and devoted himself to art from the late 1650s, initially in pen drawings. He studied first under Allart van Everdingen and then under Hendrik Dubbels, two eminent masters of the time, and soon became celebrated for his sea-pieces, which often had rough seas.
He was an ardent student of nature, and frequently exposed himself on the sea in an open boat in order to study the effects of storms. His compositions, which are numerous, are nearly all variations of one subject, the sea, and in a style peculiarly his own, marked by intense realism or faithful imitation of nature. In his later years Bakhuizen employed his skills in etching; he also painted a few examples each of several other genres of painting, such as portraits, landscapes and genre paintings. Te Papa currently has two etchings by Bakhuizen, both from the same series of ten, Seascapes with views of the Ij and Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Katwijk, etc. (1701) (see also 1869-0001-20). This impression is a third and final state. The prints were donated to the Colonial Museum by Bishop Ditlev Monrad in 1869 and form Te Papa's foundation art collection.
This etching is a seascape seen in choppy conditions, with a large three-masted sailing ship dominating the composition. In the immediate foreground is a small dinghy with six figures aboard, while a barrel floats in the bottom left.
See: Wikipedia, 'Ludolf Bakhuizen', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludolf_Bakhuizen
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art March 2019