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Lot Essay
The artist belonged to a family of painters in Amsterdam, including his father, Jan Jansz. Sturch, who later changed his name to Sturckenburch, and two brothers, Johannes and Jacobus. Of the four, only paintings by Jacobus and Abraham are known to survive. Trained by his father, Abraham was greatly influenced by Ludolf Bakhuizen in the pictorial treatment of sky and water, but he also absorbed influences from other well-known Amsterdam marine painters, notably Willem van de Velde the younger and Jan Abrahamsz. Beerstraten (the Beerstraten and Storck families were close friends and distantly related by marriage). The van de Veldes, father and son, may have inspired Storck's accuracy in the rendering of ships' rigging and technical details, which is admired by ship historians, and which is visible here in the sailors unfurling the mainsail of the ship of the line in the centre left.
Many of Storck's paintings depict Italianate harbours, for which he is regarded by some as one of the precursors of the vedutisti, but his most attractive and popular paintings are his views of harbour cities and river scenes of which the present picture is a particularly fine example. It is also very characteristic in its depiction of the recreational and ceremonial aspects of shipping, with an emphasis on colourful pleasure yachts occupied by passengers in festive dress (for example the Shipping on the IJ at Amsterdam, London, National Maritime Museum).
The emphasis on spectators and passengers in his marine 'parades' and in scenes of commercial and pleasure shipping gave Storck an opportunity to exercise his considerable skill in rendering the human figure, a skill that many other marine painters lacked and that is amply demonstrated in the present work. Like Johannes Lingelbach he seems to have sometimes painted the staffage in other painters' scenic views (for example The Dam at Amsterdam by Jan van Kessel in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin). Storck was an excellent draughtsman, and drawings by him are preserved in several museums, for example in Amsterdam, Haarlem, Vienna, Edinburgh, Cambridge and London.
The view depicted here was a popular one for Amsterdam artists - see for example the painting by Bakhuizen in the Dreesmann collection to be offered in the London section of this sale, 11 April 2002, lot 563. It shows the river IJ with Amsterdam in the background, in the far centre is the mill on the so-called 'Blauwhoofd'. The building on the right is the Tolhuis (customs house), built in 1662, beside which are the gallows that provided (they were dismantled in 1795) the sobriquet 'The Gallows at Volewijk', by which this view is also known. A continuation of the scene to the right is recorded by Storck in his View of the IJ in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede.
The Volewijk was an area of reed-land that ended with one half in the IJ. The area was known for its quantity of wildfowl, which are believed to have given its name (it possibly derives from Vogelwijk - vogel=bird). The 'Blauwhoofd' was one of the 26 bolwerken that surrounded the city until circa 1850. The 'Blauwhoofd' was on the North-west side of the IJ, on the site today of the Willem Barentszplein. The official name was 'Het bolwerk Leeuwenburg', but it was was generally known by the nickname given to it for the blue freestone of which it was constructed.
Many of Storck's paintings depict Italianate harbours, for which he is regarded by some as one of the precursors of the vedutisti, but his most attractive and popular paintings are his views of harbour cities and river scenes of which the present picture is a particularly fine example. It is also very characteristic in its depiction of the recreational and ceremonial aspects of shipping, with an emphasis on colourful pleasure yachts occupied by passengers in festive dress (for example the Shipping on the IJ at Amsterdam, London, National Maritime Museum).
The emphasis on spectators and passengers in his marine 'parades' and in scenes of commercial and pleasure shipping gave Storck an opportunity to exercise his considerable skill in rendering the human figure, a skill that many other marine painters lacked and that is amply demonstrated in the present work. Like Johannes Lingelbach he seems to have sometimes painted the staffage in other painters' scenic views (for example The Dam at Amsterdam by Jan van Kessel in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin). Storck was an excellent draughtsman, and drawings by him are preserved in several museums, for example in Amsterdam, Haarlem, Vienna, Edinburgh, Cambridge and London.
The view depicted here was a popular one for Amsterdam artists - see for example the painting by Bakhuizen in the Dreesmann collection to be offered in the London section of this sale, 11 April 2002, lot 563. It shows the river IJ with Amsterdam in the background, in the far centre is the mill on the so-called 'Blauwhoofd'. The building on the right is the Tolhuis (customs house), built in 1662, beside which are the gallows that provided (they were dismantled in 1795) the sobriquet 'The Gallows at Volewijk', by which this view is also known. A continuation of the scene to the right is recorded by Storck in his View of the IJ in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede.
The Volewijk was an area of reed-land that ended with one half in the IJ. The area was known for its quantity of wildfowl, which are believed to have given its name (it possibly derives from Vogelwijk - vogel=bird). The 'Blauwhoofd' was one of the 26 bolwerken that surrounded the city until circa 1850. The 'Blauwhoofd' was on the North-west side of the IJ, on the site today of the Willem Barentszplein. The official name was 'Het bolwerk Leeuwenburg', but it was was generally known by the nickname given to it for the blue freestone of which it was constructed.