Willem van de Velde the Younger

Willem van de Velde the Younger, portrait painted by Lodewijk van der Helst, 1672

Willem van de Velde the Younger (baptized December 18, 1633 in Leiden , † April 6, 1707 in Greenwich ) was a Dutch painter.

The cannon shot (around 1670)

biography

Willem was the first son of his father of the same name with Judith, born in 1631, who had been married to him. Adriansdr. from Leeuwen (grown in today's Wamel ). While he was born in Leiden and baptized there in the Hooglandsen Church on December 18, 1633, his brother Adriaen was born in Amsterdam in 1636. So the family must have moved to Amsterdam between those two dates. At the wedding of his father, he had specified the profession of "ship draftsman". This suggests that he was not a painter and that he made his living as a draftsman specializing in ships.

Willem the Younger first learned from his father and between 1650 and 1652 he was trained by Simon de Vlieger in Weesp . Further collaborations with Dubbels and van de Cappelle are attested. In Weesp he married Pieternelle Le Maire, but she divorced the next year because he accused her of infidelity. In 1656 he married again, this time in Leiden. With his wife Magdaleentje geb. Walravens he had the children Maria (* 1658), Judith (* 1663), Willem (1667–1708) and Sarah (* 1671). The first children were baptized in the Ouden Kerk in Amsterdam , Willem in the Zuiderkerk and Sarah was baptized as a Catholic in the Geloof Church , Hoop en Liefde .

While his father continued to paint monochrome during and after the first naval war against England , his son relied on oil paints. His father received a Galiot from the Admiralty for drawings on site. The resulting sketches were both used for their special end products. During this time, a lot of work was done in the joint workshop. Not only the two Willems worked there, but also the brother Adriaen, the sons of the younger Willem (Willem, Cornelis and Pieter), his daughter Sara and Hendrik Dubbels. His clients can be found on both the official and the private side. These included the States General , the individual provinces, cities and the admiralty.

The disaster year 1672 also changed the life of the van de Velde. In the winter of 1672/1673 they emigrated to England to start a new life there. In the middle of the war they received orders for naval pieces, this time from the British. From 1674 Charles II paid his father an annual wage of £ 100 for drawings and sketches of naval battles and a further £ 100 to the younger Willem for paintings for his own private enjoyment. The Duke of York gave another £ 50 for both of them. They were also allowed to use some rooms in the important Queen's House . As court painters, they were present at every maritime activity at the court. Nothing in these favors changed under later kings. Even when his father died in 1693, the regulations continued to apply to him.

Since 1678 signed father and son separated their works: their normal signature each with additional de Oude / O , or with de Jonge / J .

Works (excerpt)

Dutch sailing ships in a calm wind (around 1665)

The sea ​​battle off Texel on August 11, 1673 , painted in 1683, shows a sea battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch Sea War.

• The port of Amsterdam (1686, canvas, 180 × 316 cm, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam )
• The cannon shot (canvas, 79 × 67 cm, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)
• Three Ships in a Storm (1673, canvas, 75 × 95 cm, National Gallery, London )
• Dutch ships in a breeze (wood, 42 × 59 cm, National Gallery, London)
• King Charles II of England in the roadstead at Dordrecht 1660 (canvas, 67 × 77 cm, Mauritshuis , The Hague)
• Ships on the Shore (1661, canvas, 63 × 72 cm, National Gallery London)
• Silent Sea (1653, wood, 43 × 63 cm, Gemäldegalerie Kassel )
• Fishing boats in the evening when there is no wind ( Museum of Fine Arts , Leipzig)
• The so-called sea battle in the Solebay (1673, Lower Saxony State Museum , Hanover)

literature

• Jeroen Giltaij, Jan Kelch (ed.): Lords of the seas, masters of art. The Dutch seascape in the 17th century . Berlin, Rotterdam 1996, ISBN 90-6918-174-6 .
• Hermann Arthur Lier:  Velde, van de . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, pp. 557-563.
• Margareta Russell: Willem van de Velde de Jonge. Het IJ voor Amsterdam met de Gouden Leeuw (Palet Series 2). Bloemendaal 1992, ISBN 90-230-0768-9 .
• MS Robinson: Van de Velde Drawings. A catalog of drawings in the National Maritime Museum [Greenwich] made by the elder and the younger Willem van de Velde, Cambridge 1958.
• MS Robinson: The Willem van de Velde Drawings in the Boymans-van Beunigen Museum Rotterdam , 3 volumes, Rotterdam 1979.
• MS Robinson: Van de Velde Drawings in the National Maritime Museum , 2 volumes, Greenwich 1973–1974.
• HP Baard: Willem van de Velde de oude, Willem van de Velde de jonge , Amsterdam 1942.

Web links

Commons : Willem van de Velde the Younger  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Works by Willem van de Velde the Younger at Zeno.org .
• digitized collection of drawings from the largest van de Velde collection, the National Maritime Museum Greenwich
• List of works owned by the English state