Paul Jean Clays, 'Ships lying near Dordrecht', 1870

Grey clouds threaten the sailing boats in this picture. They gather from away to the left, moving swiftly in contrast to the seemingly motionless vessels below. An angry sun picks up the white sails and – in the far distance – the sails of a windmill, making them glow. There are reflections in the water, but a stiff breeze is already stirring, ruffling them and smudging them a murky grey brown.

One boat – a flat-bottomed transport vessel suitable for inshore sailing – lowers its sails ready for the storm. The green panel on one side is a leeboard, which would be lowered into the water to keep the boat from drifting with the wind. The brown-sailed vessel further away carries a Dutch ensign at the stern; beyond it, barely visible in the deepening murk, is a mast with a French flag on top, showing that these small craft were capable of travelling some distance but hugging the shore. Sturdy, workmanlike and seemingly indomitable, the height of their masts and the elegance of their sails give the little vessels a poetic grace that no gathering clouds can diminish.

Clays was one of the most distinguished Belgian marine painters of his generation. Early in his career he abandoned the violent dramas of towering seas and shipwrecks favoured by the generation of marine artists working immediately before him. He instead chose calm waters and translucent light, very much in the manner of seventeenth-century Dutch marine painters like Jan van de Cappelle (whose River Scene with Vessels Becalmed is also in the National Gallery’s collection). Clays‘ rich, clean colours, inherited perhaps from the Flemish painting tradition, also contrasted with earlier artists’ preference for smoky, rusty tones.

Apart from the title, there is little to establish that the scene in the painting is the coast off the Dutch port of Dordrecht. There were windmills everywhere in Europe, especially in Holland, and though the white tower next to the one here could be Dordrecht’s famous church, it’s not a certainty. Clays has packed the shore with boats and more boats, hiding any other landmarks. But a note in French on fading brown paper is pasted on the stretcher at the back of the picture. It translates as: ‘I wish to declare that I have painted this picture for Mr John Parsons (at London). It represents a calm before the storm around Dordrecht, (Holland).' It is signed P.J. Clays, Brussels, 1870; Parsons bequeathed the picture to the National Gallery the same year.