# Dutch Harbour in Calm [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [VELDE, Willem van de, the Elder]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Pen, ink and oil on panel, 48 x 65 cm ## Commentary This panel shows a Dutch harbour in a calm with small vessels inshore and beached among fishermen, a kaag at anchor, a states yacht and men o'war offshore. This composition in black and white, a remarkable fusion of painting and drawing, is usually described as a pen-painting \(after the Dutch penschilderij\). The technique probably derives from the work of Hendrick Goltzius, but for the Mannerist painter it was a bravura demonstration of technical virtuosity, a means of astounding his viewers with his extraordinary dexterity, while for Willem van de Velde the Elder, it was more a means to an end. Over the course of his long career he made relatively few traditional oil paintings in colour, preferring instead the pen-painting, and he viewed himself primarily as a draftsman. ## Related artworks - [Frederick Henry's Fleet Waiting on the Merwede River near Dordrecht, 1646]() - [The Battle of Livorno \(detail\)]() - [The Battle of Livorno \(detail\)]() - [The Battle of Livorno]() - [The Battle of the Sound]() - [The Council of War on Board 'De Zeven Provincien', the Flagship of Michiel Adriaensz de Ruyter, on 10 June 1666]() - [The Dutch Navy Sailing]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()