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Mediterranean Harbor
Adam Pijnacker (Dutch, 1622–1673)
about 1650
Medium/Technique
Oil on panel
Dimensions
33 x 46.7 cm (13 x 18 3/8 in.)
Framed: 47.6 x 63.7 x 6.4 cm (18 3/4 x 25 1/16 x 2 1/2 in.)
Framed: 47.6 x 63.7 x 6.4 cm (18 3/4 x 25 1/16 x 2 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art
Accession Number2021.713
OUT ON LOAN
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
Adam Pijnacker, who spent three years in Rome, specialized in imaginary depictions of the Italian countryside and Mediterranean harbors. In this Italianate scene, he romanticizes a teeming port. Dutch merchants, dockworkers and exotic types sit and stand amid unloaded cargo, against a backdrop of ships and a sun-filled sky. Such artistic fantasies or capricci held a strong appeal for Dutch buyers who yearned to be transported to distant corners of the world.
ProvenanceTheodor Gerhard Lürman (b. 1789 - d. 1865), Bremen; probably by descent to his sons, Johann Theodor Lürman (b. 1812 - d. 1889) and Stephan August Lürman (b. 1820 - d. 1903) [see note 1]. 1952, Kunstsalon Abels, Cologne. Private collection, Bremen. Until 2000, collection of a merchant bank, Hamburg [see note 2]. November 25, 2000, anonymous sale, Lempertz, Cologne, lot 1227. Haboldt and Co., Paris and New York; 2001, sold by Haboldt and Co. to Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo, Marblehead, MA; 2021, gift of Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 15, 2021)
NOTES:
[1] See Gustav Pauli, “Die Gemäldesammlung der Familie Lürman,” Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst 15 (1904): 170 and, for more on the Lürman collection, Andrea Weniger, “'Die Sammler und die Seinigen'. Die Gemäldesammlung des Aeltermann Lürman in Bremen,” in Museum Revisited: Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf eine Institution im Wandel (Bielefeld, 2010). This painting does not appear in the 1904 or 1905 Lürman sales.
[2] Provenance from 1952 to the Hamburg collection is according to Frederik Duparc, Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Collection of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo (New Haven, 2011), cat. 45. There is a Kunsthandel Abels label on the back of the painting.
NOTES:
[1] See Gustav Pauli, “Die Gemäldesammlung der Familie Lürman,” Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst 15 (1904): 170 and, for more on the Lürman collection, Andrea Weniger, “'Die Sammler und die Seinigen'. Die Gemäldesammlung des Aeltermann Lürman in Bremen,” in Museum Revisited: Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf eine Institution im Wandel (Bielefeld, 2010). This painting does not appear in the 1904 or 1905 Lürman sales.
[2] Provenance from 1952 to the Hamburg collection is according to Frederik Duparc, Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Collection of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo (New Haven, 2011), cat. 45. There is a Kunsthandel Abels label on the back of the painting.