Lot 649 | Adam Willaerts | Coastal Scene with Sailing Ships in Front of a Harbour

WILLAERTS, ADAM
1577 Antwerpen - 1664 Utrecht

Title: Coastal Scene with Sailing Ships in Front of a Harbour.
Technique: Oil on wood.
Mounting: Parquetted.
Measurement: 46 x 84cm.
Notation: Monogrammed and dated lower right: A.W. F. 1642.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

Provenance:
VAN HAM Kunstauktionen, Cologne, 13.05.2016, lot 508;
Private ownership, Germany.

The painting is illustrated and documented in the online database of the RKD, The Hague, under ill. no. 260079.

There are public state art collections and institutional art collections and private art collections and collections of artists and - let us call it - an "accumulation" of perhaps alleged art objects.
With the following works of art, however, we have the pleasure of presenting to you a very extraordinarily exciting collection from southern Germany. The collector, an extremely successful architect, has remained faithful to his study focus on "Creative Design" at the Technical University in Darmstadt throughout his professional life.
As a student in the 1960s, he travelled to West Africa and the Orient, to countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. He spent three months working and studying in Nigeria - and it was here that his passion for collecting works of art began, a passion that still burns within him today.
A chance encounter with the young painter Michael Engelhardt (1952), a master student of Rudolf Hausner (1914 - 1995), the artist of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, led to his burning interest in the so-called "Feinmalerei" (fine art painting). He not only immersed himself in the fascinating technique but also studied the actual origins of this skill among the Dutch in the 16th century up to the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century.
Without any fear of contact, but instead with an irrepressible curiosity, he collects the finest works from this period with an unerring sense of quality. We are now pleased to offer you these crowning pieces here and invite you to immerse yourself in the incredible details of the landscapes and village scenes. For centuries, the artistry of this style of painting has enthralled art connoisseurs, and no significant art collection should be without this particular style of art to this day.

Among the works in this collection that stand out for their special quality are landscapes created by painters who took their cue from Jan Brueghel, the undisputed master of landscape painting of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Adam Willaerts is best known for his landscapes of architecture, seascapes, beach and coastal views, proving to be very adept at perspective. The sea was one of the undisputed protagonists in his works. Unlike other artists of his time who limited themselves to purely seascapes, he also realised subjects from the biblical tradition related to the sea, such as Jonah and the Whale, The Miraculous Catch of Fish, The Praying Christ on the Sea of Galilee. His later maritime production echoes Jan Brueghel and Joos de Momper. The painting offered here (lot 649), depicting a coastal scene populated by numerous figures immortalised in their daily activities, is likely to fall into this category.