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Biography of Willem van de Velde, the Younger (1633–1707)
One of the best-known and most influential Dutch marine painters, active in England from 1672/73. He was born in Leiden to a family of artists; his father Willem van de Velde the Elder was a marine painter. His brother Adriaen specialized in animal and landscape painting and is believed to have painted figures in some of Willem’s seascapes. Willem trained under his father and Simon de Vlieger, learning the detailed portrayal of ships from the first and atmospheric effects from the latter. His paintings showing Dutch ships in calm conditions, one of his preferred subjects, demonstrate his unrivalled mastery in composition and rendering of weather conditions (examples are ‘A Calm’, circa 1655, in The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London and ‘Calm: a Dutch Flagship Coming to Anchor with a States Yacht Before a Light Air’ in the National Maritime Museum, London). He worked in Amsterdam in his father’s studio before they both settled in England, first in Greenwich (where their studio from 1674 was in the Queen’s House), then in 1692 in Westminster. Both artists were appointed to work for Charles II and together undertook commissions that consisted chiefly of battle scenes.
The father was responsible for the overall composition, the son for the execution in oils. The demand for their paintings both in England and Holland was so great that in order to keep up with the commissions they began to rely increasingly on studio assistants who at various times included Johann van der Hagen, almost certainly Adriaen van Diest and probably Jacob Knyff. This produced variations of quality and attribution of their works is therefore sometimes problematic. To all intents, however, given the influence of their studio, the van de Veldes were the founders of the English school of marine painting. After the death of his father in 1693, Willem the Younger continued as the official painter to the English Admiralty but moved away from his father’s rigid realism, introducing a more relaxed manner. His sons Willem and Cornelis were among his many followers in England although very little by the former and few works by the latter are known. He may have died in Greenwich, where he retained a house and studio and was buried on 17 April 1717 near his father at St James’s, Piccadilly, where a memorial to father and son was erected by the Society for Nautical Research in 1929.
View paintings by Willem van de Velde, the Younger
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