Signed and dated 1620, this coastal scene was painted by Adam Willaerts at the height of his powers. Reliant upon his creative capacities, Willaerts specialized in marine paintings despite having always worked in Utrecht, a landlocked city, where he was a founding member of the painters’ Guild of St Luke.

While his invented harbors often incorporate elements from real life, this example is especially interesting for its various references to the artist’s hometown. Nestled in the chalky cliffs, the distant church depicted at upper right is the famous Mariakerk. The city gate below can be identified as the Gildpoort, a gate to the so-called “Stadsvrijheid” (City Freedom), and the tower-like structure beyond reminds of the Servaastoren, a sixteenth-century tower in the defensive wall of Utrecht that once marked the entrance to the Nieuwegracht. Inspired by his native city, Willaerts blends truth and fantasy within this composition to produce a remarkable sense of romanticism and adventure.

In this work Willaerts effectively merges the Dutch traditions of landscape, seascape, and genre painting. Three Dutch man-o’-wars with billowing sails navigate the choppy waters while a kaag sails into the cove and a few fishing boats have already pulled up onto the beach. Along the shoreline, a fishmarket bustles with townsfolk and elegantly dressed figures. Among the many charming anecdotal details, a fisherman hauls his catch up the dune at left, a woman nurses a child at right, and another balances an empty basket on her head beside a wooden, horse-drawn cart. Like many of Willaert’s paintings, the composition adopts a three-zoned color scheme–a brown foreground, green middle distance, and pale blue sky–inspired by Jan Breughel the Elder and the Mannerist tradition. Scattered touches of red in the cost.mes s of the foreground figures lend chromatic variation to the mainly tonal palette, a common tactic employed by the artist with enlivening effect.

We are grateful to Dr. Laurens Schoemaker for his assistance in the cataloguing of the present lot.