A Man O'War Lying at Anchor

The Dordrecht native Johannes Christiaan Schotel was the Netherlands’s preeminent marine painter in the nineteenth century. His clientele included Prince William VI (1772-1843) (the future William I, King of the Netherlands) and various international patrons, including the English diplomat and collector Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850). Schotel’s work, like that of his close contemporary J.M.W. Turner, reveals an admiration for, and dialogue with, seventeenth-century seascape painting, while often also reflecting recent history.

For a contemporary audience, the combination of the anchored man-of-war, blue sky and calm water, and apparently commercial, rather than military, activity of the waterfront in this sheet might have operated as an expression of the peace and prosperity that followed the end of the Napoleonic wars and control of the Netherlands. The scene is populated by figures—members of distinctly different classes—at work. On the quay at left, laborers roll barrels to be loaded onto, or unloaded from, a rotating crane. In the boat in the foreground, two officers in bicorn hats are accompanied by a group of sailors. Even the poor figures on the shore appear happy with their prospects.

(JSS, 8/23/2018)