A Fishing Pink

The painting depicts a fishing pink being made ready to be launched from a beach in a breeze, with small dutch vessels inshore. Although the setting is imaginary, we are on the sandy coastline of Holland near Alkmaar, or further south-west between Haarlem and Scheveningen. The prevailing westerly wind is driving the clouds along as we look towards the north-west, with the low afternoon sun to our left casting long shadows from the fisherman in red in the foreground. Close inshore, two smalschips are manoeuvring, one with the wind on its quarter, the other close-hauled, while to the right and further offshore, a wijdschip makes its way upwind along the coastline.

This gentle coastal marine is undated, but is consistent with paintings by Backhuysen from the late 1670s and around 1680, when the artist starts to simplify his cloudscapes, as the influence of Willem van de Velde the Younger on his work, who had left for London several years earlier, recedes.

The painting is signed lower left: LBak.