Flemish school; first half of the 17th century.

Flemish school; first half of the 17th century.
"Naval scene".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It has slight Repainting.
Measurements: 58 x 93 cm; 69 x 104 cm (frame).
In this canvas is reproduced in detail, a naval scene starring four large ships located in different planes. We see two of the ships placed in parallel, the third in the center and the largest one on the left side of the composition. To accentuate the drama of the scene, the painter plunges the foreground into darkness, giving the waters of the sea a dark and ominous tone, which lightens in the background, reinforcing the construction of space in depth in a scene that lacks spatial references, since it is the open sea delimited by the coast. The masts, sails and flags of the ships in the foregrounds also contribute to this construction of the scenery, which follow one after the other in depth, worked in a precise, draftsmanlike style. In fact, the scene in general is treated with a descriptive and highly narrative language. This is due to the genre itself, since the main purpose of this painting is to relate a historical fact, and not to capture the beauty of nature.
The work follows the models of the artist Matthieu Van Plattenberg (1608 - 1660), who specialized in depicting brightly colored storms with turbulent, foamy seas. Van Plattenberg rarely signed or dated his works. Van Plattenberg influenced the marine painter Allessandro Grevenbroeck, a painter of Dutch descent who was active in northern Italy between 1717 and 1747. He is also considered an important precursor of Pieter Mulier, known in Italy, where he was active most of his life, as "Cavalier Pietro Tempesta". Mulier was especially known for the stormy skies of his seascapes, and Plattenberg's paintings are thought to anticipate Tempesta's early sea storms. Tempesta must have seen van Plattenberg's works in Italy. Some of Matthieu van Plattenberg's works have in the past been attributed to Mulier. Van Plattenberg should also be distinguished from Montagne of Venice (or Rinaldo della Montagna), who was also a marine painter mentioned by Cesare Malvasia in his biography of Guido Reni.