Willem van de Velde The Younger

WILLEM VAN DE VELDE THE YOUNGER Leiden 1633 – 1707 London The second child of the marine artist of the same name, Willem van de Velde the Younger was baptized in Leiden on 18th December 1633. His younger brother, Adriaen (1636-1672) was an accomplished landscapist. The family settled in Amsterdam in 1633. Willem II probably studied with his father, although Houbraken (1719) reported that he was a pupil of Simon de Vlieger, probably in Weesp, where de Vlieger had settled by March 1650. On 13th March 1652, at the age of eighteen, Willem married Petronella de Maire of Weesp in Amsterdam. However the marriage lasted only eighteen months before van de Velde brought proceedings against his wife, with de Vlieger testifying on his behalf. In 1666, he married a second time to Magdalena Walravens; the couple had six children, and three of the sons (Willem, Cornelis and Peter) became painters. Van de Velde’s earliest dated paintings are of 1651 and 1653. He lived and worked in Amsterdam until the French invasion of 1672, when the art market collapsed. According to a letter from Peter Blaeu to Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici, Willem the Elder decided to emigrate to England, or barring that, to Italy. Willem the Younger was certainly in London by the end of 1672. He painted overdoors for Ham House in 1673, and by 1674 both father and son were in the service of Charles II, who paid them each an annual retainer of £100. They resided in England for the rest of their lives, making only brief return visits to Holland. They shared a studio in the Queen's House at Greenwich, where they lived until moving to Westminster in 1691, where Willem the Elder died in 1693. The son outlived his father by fourteen years and was buried in St James’s church in Piccadilly in April 1707. Van de Velde’s earliest works reflect the influence of de Vlieger. During the mid-1650s and 1660s he painted the finest works from his Dutch period, often depicting ships in a calm. Van de Velde depicted naval battles fought during the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1666 and during his later years in England increasingly favoured historical maritime themes. After 1673 he painted many royal British ceremonial subjects. However, even after moving to England he was still commissioned to paint subjects by the Amsterdam Harbour Commission and by Admiral Tromp (e.g. Battle of Texel, 1687, Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam) for his country house, Trompenburg, 's Gravesande. In England, Willem and his father managed a large studio with many assistants and students, who produced versions, replicas and copies of their most successful compositions. The shop included not only Willem II’s sons, Willem and Cornelis, but also Isaac Sailmaker, Jacob Knyff, Peter Monamy and others. Peter C Sutton.