Paul Jean Clays, 'Ships lying off Flushing', 1869

Paul Jean Clays’ heavy working boats are motionless, their sails hanging like sculptured banners glowing in the sun. But their power is palpable, three great vessels ready to surge forward with the first breath of wind. Although the vessels are stately and we see the detail of rigging, the painting seems to be more about reflected light – the gleaming reflections that spread, shimmering, across the still water to the edge of the picture, almost under our feet.

The three central boats appear to be koffs, shallow-bottomed craft commonly in use in the nineteenth century on the coasts of Belgium and Germany. As they could sail close inshore, they were ideal for transporting goods and people. A small barge carrying passengers is coming in to the leading boat. Two others are moored nearby, one of them with the sail being raised.

The smaller boat on the left with the stubby mast and brown sail is a hay barge, a small vessel that would not venture far out into the North Sea. It carries the Dutch ensign; because of the lack of breeze to fill them out, it’s the only identifiable flag in the painting. But we can make out the tall chimneys of a distant factory in Flushing (in the Southwest Netherlands), its smoke spiralling upwards to join the quiet clouds above.

Taught in Paris by Horace Vernet and afterwards by Théodore Gudin, Clays broke free of the Romantic tradition of marine paintings depicting storms, naval battles and tragedies at sea. He seems to have reverted to the practices of seventeenth-century Dutch masters like Willem van de Velde, for whom the accuracy and detail of each vessel was paramount, and Jan van de Cappelle, who focused on the serene atmosphere of a calm sea. A Dutch Yacht saluting by van de Velde and A Coast Scene by van de Cappelle are also in the National Gallery’s collection.

Clays was extremely successful in his day but is nowadays less well known, though his paintings are to be seen particularly in regional American galleries. Perhaps wealthy Americans came over and bought these attractive and atmospheric pictures to remind them of their time in Europe.