An Antwerp Pleit and Other Ships between Noord-Beveland and Wolphardsdijk, 1775

About the Work

Hendrik Kobell was an artist who specialized in seascapes in the tradition of seventeenth-century painting. This composition assembles a whole fleet of precisely depicted ships rocking in the choppy waves. In a patch of sunlight in the left foreground is a “pleit”, a cargo sailing vessel constructed for shallow waters and featuring wing-like leeboards on either side for stability. As stormy as the sea itself, the weather covers a spectrum from pouring rain to warm sunshine.