Large Marine painting with Ships in the port. 1690-1720 circa. Cm 110x 118

Large Marine Painting with Sailing Ships in a Port

Franco-Dutch school, circa 1690–1720

Oil on canvas, 100 × 118 cm

Giltwood frame, early 19th century, with minor imperfections easily restorable

This impressive marine painting stands as a visual testimony to a pivotal moment in European history — the era of major naval expansion, strategic shipyard construction, and the rise of transoceanic commerce, which also marked the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade from the great French and Dutch ports. Between the late 17th and early 18th centuries, under Louis XIV, vast shipyards and fortified harbors were established at Rochefort, Brest, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, transforming maritime painting into a genre that combined technical precision and state prestige, celebrating the power of northern European seafaring nations.

The composition depicts a bustling harbor animated by three-masted warships and merchant vessels, their massive hulls and richly decorated sterns crowned with carved lion figureheads. The ships are characteristic of the 1690–1720 period, with high vertical sterns, square sails, and heavy proportions, belonging to the transitional stage before the lighter frigates of the later 18th century. The detailed rigging and the accuracy of the naval architecture reveal a painter well acquainted with contemporary shipbuilding in the North Sea region.

On the quay, small groups of workers and merchants in late-17th-century dress — short jackets, knee breeches, capes, and tall two- or three-cornered hats — handle barrels and crates, reflecting the daily labor of port life during the early Atlantic trade. The correlation between the ship types and clothing styles confirms a date around 1700, when maritime construction and trade were at their height in northern Europe.

The atmosphere is cool and northern, with diffused daylight and soft tonal transitions, far from the Mediterranean warmth of later French seascapes. The painter combines the analytical precision of the Dutch tradition (inherited from the van de Velde family and Bonaventura Peeters) with the structured and monumental order typical of French compositions under Louis XIV.

This work likely originates from a Franco-Dutch artist active around 1700, within the circle of Jan Karel Donatus van Beecq (1638–1722) or a related follower. It embodies the artistic language of an age that celebrated shipbuilding, commerce, and maritime power at the dawn of Europe’s colonial expansion.

Large in scale and finely executed, the painting is in good condition and retains its early-19th-century giltwood frame, with minor, easily restorable imperfections.