Night Ferries to The Hague, Delft and Leiden

Night Ferries to The Hague, Delft and Leiden

Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing by the specialist of marine imagery Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman (meaning “sailor” or “seaman” in Dutch), is a fully developed print design, incised for transfer to the printing plate, for the artist’s best-known series, “Verscheyde Schepen en Gesichten van Amstelredam” (“Various Ships and Views of Amsterdam”).[1] The series, produced by Zeeman in the mid-1650s, comprises thirty-six etchings divided into three equal parts. The print that reproduces the present sheet, in reverse, is the fifth of the twelve that make up the third part. (The number inscribed at the bottom right of the drawing, if read correctly as a 29, indicates the place of the image within the entire set of thirty-six.) The caption on the print differs slightly, naming “Rotterdamse” (Rotterdam) instead of “Leidse” (Leiden) as the third destination of the nighttime ferries depicted here. The drawing exhibits Zeeman’s characteristically meticulous rendering of nautical details, particularly the rigging of the sails. As a nocturne, it also demonstrates his sensitive treatment of both natural and artificial light, with areas of untouched paper conveying the moonlight gleaming through the clouds, the glow of lanterns illuminating the figures on the boat, and the reflections on the rippled surface of the water. A liberal application of gray ink establishes the shifting tonalities of the night sky. (JSS, 8/23/2018) [1] For the series and the various other surviving drawings by Zeeman that relate to it, see Hollstein vol. 56, nos. 29-40, pp. 98-206.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Night Ferries to The Hague, Delft and LeidenNight Ferries to The Hague, Delft and LeidenNight Ferries to The Hague, Delft and LeidenNight Ferries to The Hague, Delft and LeidenNight Ferries to The Hague, Delft and Leiden

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.