Aernout Smit (Amsterdam 1640/41-1710)

This beautifully executed and preserved painting reveals the great accomplishments of Aernout Smit as a maritime painter. The artist is thought to have been a native of Amsterdam and is recorded by Houbraken as having been a pupil of Jan Theunisz. Blanckerhoff, who was active in Amsterdam between 1659 and 1666. That would fit with Smit's presumed age, based on a notarial deed of 1667, in which he is described as 'about 26'. He is recorded several times residing in Amsterdam and in the late 1660s possibly worked in commission for the art dealer Laurens Cornelisz. de Coninck. Smit was strongly influenced by the work of Ludolf Bakhuizen, and made a statement before a notary in 1689, in which he declared that some two years earlier he had copied a ‘square painting’ by Backhuysen, a view of the IJ in Amsterdam, at the request of the owner of the original painting, Hendrick Grel. The present picture in all likelyhood dates from Smit's mature period, displaying a very strong and balanced composition, compatible with Bakhuizen, but also revealing similarities with pictures by Willem van de Velde the Younger.