Dune Scene with Peasant Figures (mid-1650s): Art, History and Details

Dune Scene with Peasant Figures (mid-1650s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Willem van de Velde (Dutch, c. 1611–1693).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Starting life as a sailor, Willem van de Velde was soon appointed to make drawings and paintings of ships in the Dutch navy, and, in 1672, he was appointed by the English king to record English vessels and naval campaigns. In this drawing, made across two oblong sheets of a sketchbook, Van de Velde turned his eye to the beach, using chalk to capture the flat beach, grassy dunes, and small village and church steeple on the coast of Holland. He added the groupings of figures and horse-drawn carts in the foreground later with pen and ink.

Object facts

• Title: Dune Scene with Peasant Figures
• Date: mid-1650s
• Creator attribution: Willem van de Velde (Dutch, c. 1611–1693)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pen and brown ink over graphite on antique laid paper; lined with tissue paper
• Dimensions: Support: 28.9 x 58.7 cm (11 3/8 x 23 1/8 in.); Matted: 36.2 x 60.5 x 0.5 cm (14 1/4 x 23 13/16 x 3/16 in.); Image: 17.5 x 49.5 cm (6 7/8 x 19 1/2 in.)
• Collection: DR - Dutch
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2019.15

A detail from the museum

This artist started his career as a sailor, but when his talent was recognized, he became a draftsman and painter of naval scenes and battles in both Holland and England.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• National Maritime Museum (Great Britain), Willem van de Velde, and Willem van de Velde. Van De Velde Drawings; A Catalogue of Drawings in the National Maritime Museum Made by the Elder and the Younger Willem Van De Velde. Cambridge [England]: University Press, 1958.
• Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, Willem van de Velde, and Willem van de Velde. The Willem Van De Velde Drawings in the Boymans-Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam. Rotterdam: Museum Boymans-van Beuningen Foundation, 1979.
• Daaider, Remmelt. Van de Velde & zoon, zeeschilders: het bedrijf van Willem van de Velde de Oude en Willem van de Velde de Jonge, 1640-1707. Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2016

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.