Isaac Willaerts

Mrs. H.G. McGrath;
By whose executors sold, London, Christie's, 19 November 1971, lot 122;
With Leger Galleries, 1972;
From whom acquired for the Grasset collection.

F.G. Meijer, Brueghel to Canaletto, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, exhibition catalogue, San Diego 2016, p. 31, reproduced;

S. Thomas, A Feast for the Eyes, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, exhibition catalogue, Saint Petersburg, Florida 2019, p. 92, cat. no. 40.

San Diego, San Diego Museum of Art, Brueghel to Canaletto, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, 2 April – 2 August 2016;
San Diego, San Diego Museum of Art, Genre and Myth, 2016;
Saint Petersburg, Florida, Museum of Fine Arts, A Feast for the Eyes, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, 23 March – 2 September 2019, no. 40.

Signed and dated 1646, this dramatic coastal scene by Isaac Willaerts, son of the marine painter Adam Willaerts, depicts merchant ships in distress along a foreign rocky coast. The vessels founder in the violent waves and appear perilously at risk of crashing against the nearby cliffside. Maritime debris litters the roiling waters and rescuers and survivors, calling out to the deckhands still on board, dot the shoreline in the foreground. In the distance, silhouettes of other figures wait on the beach below a fortified city. The vessel in the right foreground flies the Burgundian flag, frequently used by Dutch vessels at this date, and possibly also displays the coat of arms of the state of Gelderland, a province in the east Netherlands.