David Teniers the Younger

Collection Colien, Paris;

Collection of the Count of Vence, Paris, in 1747 and 1750;

His sale after-death (Cabinet de feu m. le Comte de Vence ... [etc.]), Paris , 9-17 February 1761, lot 55 (sold 1260 livres);

Collection Augustin Blondel de Gagny, Paris;

His sale after-death (Cabinet de feu m. Blondel de Gagny), Paris, 10 December 1776-22 January 1777, lot 83 (sold 4820 livres);

Where acquired by Alexander Sergeievitch Stroganoff, Count of Stroganoff, Saint-Petersburg;

His sale (Tableaux anciens provenant de la collection réunie par le Comte Stroganoff au Palais Stroganoff, à Petrograd), M^e Lair-Dubreuil, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 22 May 1924, lot 15;

Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 18 December 1967;

Anonymous sale, Ader-Picard-Tajan, Paris, Drouot-Montaigne, 27 June 1989, lot 11;

Collection Dr. Manuel R. Espirito Santo Silva, in 1991;

Private Collection, France.

Antwerp, Museum of Fine Arts, David Teniers the Younger. Paintings. Drawings, May-September 1991, no. 54.

J.-B. Descamps, La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandais, Paris 1754, vol II, p. 159;

J. Smith, A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch and Flemish painters [...], London 1831, vol. III, p. 285, no.82 (titled A view on the Seashore);

J. Smith, A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch and Flemish painters [...], London 1842, vol. IX, p. 424, no. 59 (titled A view on the Seashore).

On a clear sunny day, three fishermen are pulling their nets from the sea, one from his boat, the others from the shore. Behind them, there is a glimpse of a seaside town.

Particular attention has been paid to the blue and grey nuances of the water, to the foam washing along the water’s edge, highlighted with a sparkling white by the sun’s rays, and to the waves swelling the sea in the distance. In the sky, patches of blue can be seen through gaps in the clouds, while a fleeting rainbow appears behind the town, evidence of a recent downpour. The line of the horizon between the sky and the sea is barely perceptible: the grey of the water merges with the clouds and it is the sails of the boats that mark the transition between the elements. The fishermen’s activity seems almost incidental and does not ruffle the ordered calm of the elements.

The effects of nature on the elements are very carefully scrutinized, as in most landscapes painted by Teniers in Antwerp in the 1640s. The serenity of this simple scene has enchanted collectors across the centuries. Engraved in 1747 by Philippe Le Bas when it was in the famous collection belonging to the Comte de Vence, it was published in the Mercure de France that same year. It was then acquired by Augustin Blondel de Gagny, before joining the collection of Count Stroganoff, who displayed it in his palace in St Petersburg where it would remain throughout the nineteenth century. More recently, in the 1990s, it was bought by Manuel Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva, scion of the banking empire and inheritor of the important collection of works of art assembled by his father in Portugal – testifying to the sustained and ongoing interest that this peaceful scene has inspired in collectors.