Night Ferries to The Hague, Delft and Leiden

This drawing by the specialist of marine imagery Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman (meaning “sailor” or “seaman” in Dutch), is a fully developed print design, incised for transfer to the printing plate, for the artist’s best-known series, “Verscheyde Schepen en Gesichten van Amstelredam” (“Various Ships and Views of Amsterdam”).[1] The series, produced by Zeeman in the mid-1650s, comprises thirty-six etchings divided into three equal parts. The print that reproduces the present sheet, in reverse, is the fifth of the twelve that make up the third part. (The number inscribed at the bottom right of the drawing, if read correctly as a 29, indicates the place of the image within the entire set of thirty-six.) The caption on the print differs slightly, naming “Rotterdamse” (Rotterdam) instead of “Leidse” (Leiden) as the third destination of the nighttime ferries depicted here.

The drawing exhibits Zeeman’s characteristically meticulous rendering of nautical details, particularly the rigging of the sails. As a nocturne, it also demonstrates his sensitive treatment of both natural and artificial light, with areas of untouched paper conveying the moonlight gleaming through the clouds, the glow of lanterns illuminating the figures on the boat, and the reflections on the rippled surface of the water. A liberal application of gray ink establishes the shifting tonalities of the night sky.

(JSS, 8/23/2018)


[1] For the series and the various other surviving drawings by Zeeman that relate to it, see Hollstein vol. 56, nos. 29-40, pp. 98-206.