Jan van Os - Calm Seas with Fishing Boats and a Three-Master [1770s]

Jan van Os - Calm Seas with Fishing Boats and a Three-Master [1770s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The boats here are mostly fishing and transport craft seen in a flat calm, their curved hulls and white sails reflecting in the mirror-like water. The radiant morning sky is piled high with cumulus clouds. The moisture in the atmosphere casts a pearly veil over the ships in the right middle distance, perhaps presaging a change in the weather. In the foreground left boats fly the Dutch colours, the vanes barely lifting in the almost non-existent breeze. They have leeboards for manoeuvring in shallow waters. At far right is a three-masted merchantman.

Although he spent his career in The Hague, Jan van Os (1744 - 1808) was born in Middelharnis in the south-western province of Zeeland, which as its name suggests, straddles the Scheldt delta and was largely reclaimed from the sea. Scenes like the one portrayed here would have been familiar from van Os’s childhood.

[Oil on panel, 30.5 x 44.5 cm]