The Battle of the Zuider Zee, 6 October 1573, Abraham de Verwer, 1621 – (Abraham De Verweer Van Burghstrate) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Abraham De Verweer Van Burghstrate

Date: 1621

Size: 153 x 340 cm

Technique: Oil On Canvas

It was in 1621 that Abraham de Verwer painted this monumental canvas of the glorious victory won at the Battle of the Zuider Zee in 1573 by the Sea Beggars, the name proudly borne by the maritime forces in the revolt against Spanish rule. A few days after the Relief of Alkmaar, the Spanish fleet was put to flight by the Dutch under the command of Cornelis Dirks, burgomaster of Monnickendam, and the victors also captured the Count of Bossu, the stadholder appointed by the Duke of Alva, governor-general of the Netherlands. It is not impossible that the Battle of the Zuider Zee gained added resonance after the end of the Twelve Years’ Truce in 1621.4 The painting shows that relatively small merchantmen took part in the battle, having been transformed into men-of-war for the occasion. The coast of North Holland can be seen in the background. This painting may be identical with a work mentioned in the 1632 inventory of the Oude Hof (Old Court) in The Hague. In the old bedchamber below the quarters of Stadholder Frederik Hendrik were ‘Two large paintings on canvas, the one of the battle with the Count of Bossu, and the other, even larger, of various great ships arriving from Breda, both made by Master [Hendrick] Vroom’.5 It is perhaps a little unlikely that a painting by De Verwer was being attributed to Vroom a mere 11 years after it had been made, but today there is no known painting of the Battle of the Zuider Zee by Vroom. This is one of the few signed and dated works in Abraham de Verwer’s modest oeuvre. As Bol rightly observed, this early painting displays the lively use of colour and panoramic manner of presentation that links the work of De Verwer with that of Vroom and Aert Anthonisz.6 The scene was painted delicately with a keen eye for detail. The painting is still in its original box frame. Of particular interest are the holes bored in the sides of the frame for tensioning the canvas. Only a few 17th-century frames have something similar.7 However, the painting is not stretched in its original manner. It was lined, attached to a modern stretcher and returned to its frame. The original form of lacing the canvas directly into the frame was a very common practice in the Dutch Republic until around 1635.8 Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007 See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 310.