View of Hoorn

This atmospheric painting depicts Hoorn, an important port city on the Zuiderzee, north of Amsterdam. A bank of clouds stretches across the late-afternoon sky, with only the rippling water and a gliding sailboat suggesting the gentle breeze overhead. From the low and distant vantage point, Hoorn’s city profile is a mere slither of built-up land that separates the expanses of water and sky. The only activity of note in this serene image occurs on the deck of the large merchant ship at the left, where a group of sailors using a block-and-tackle system appear to be raising or lowering cargo that presumably has been brought, or will be taken, by the smaller boat moored alongside. Just behind the stern of the East Indiaman, the large ship flying the Dutch flag in the center of the painting, we discern the Hoofdtoren, the sturdy defensive tower at the hoofd (entrance) of the inner harbor, as well as the masts of moored ships.

De Verwer’s luminous depiction of Hoorn reflects stylistic transformations that were occurring in Dutch marine painting during the 1640s, much of it owing to the influence of Simon de Vlieger (1600/1601–1653). Yet the distinctive compositional and draftsmanly qualities of View of Hoorn echo the tonal character of the remarkable, spare pen-and-wash drawings he made of port cities along the coasts of France and the Netherlands in the 1630s and 1640s. Indeed, stylistic comparisons with these drawings provide a fundamental basis for the attribution of this unsigned painting to De Verwer.