Abraham Storck, 'A River View', about 1690-1700

In this busy but peaceful scene Abraham Storck shows an idealised version of life on a Dutch river in the seventeenth century, but his painting of the vessels is detailed and accurate. The rising sun is hidden behind the sails of the man-of-war (the great ship coming in from the sea) and the grey dawn light lifts as the morning clouds drift away almost imperceptibly on a faint breeze. The light catches the graceful folds of the sails, making them glow. There’s hardly a ripple to disturb the reflections in the still water.

The central boat is a boyer yacht, an inshore vessel with a scoop-shaped leeboard that would be lowered in rough weather to keep the vessel on an even keel. Next to it, with its brown sail limp and waiting for the wind, is a tjalk (a heavy barge). Its Dutch flag is just beginning to fill with the first of the wind, and it is crowded with men in black cocked hats – a new fashion – and heavy coats. Beyond is a statenyacht, an official vessel for transporting members of the States General and important foreign visitors, with the arms of the Province of Holland on its stern and a splendid silver lamp and Dutch flag above them.

On the river banks people are already fishing, watching the boats and chatting, seemingly at leisure against a background of windmills and houses, tall masts and distant spires. Men are at work on the spit of land in the middle of the river, their boats moored at either end. The spindly trees have fresh new leaves and the pollarded willow leaning over the water already has young shoots. The scene looks authentic, and the large church in the background looks like St Lawrence Cathedral in Rotterdam – but there the resemblance to the city ends.

As far as we know, Abraham Storck never left Holland. He wasn't interested in his paintings being topographically accurate: he wanted to present an atmosphere, sometimes a feeling of excitement and wonder at new discoveries (as in Whaling Grounds in the Arctic, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and sometimes a romantic view of exotic places (as in Seaport with Large and Small Ships, Maidstone Museum). In this painting he has taken a building that could be Rotterdam Cathedral and placed it in the centre of the background. Unlike the many accurately depicted vessels, the rest of the landscape around the banks of the river is imaginary and the soft glow of the sky seems more Mediterranean than Northern European. This is a painting that would have appealed to a collector, especially one who shared Storck’s knowledge of ships and his romantic vision of the sea.