1644 -1708 · Amsterdam, navies, imaginary ports and naval ceremonies

Precisely rigged ships, pink skies, Mediterranean ports and water festivals make Abraham Storck a refined chronicler of Dutch maritime power.

Abraham Storck was born in Amsterdam in 1644 into a family of painters. His father Jan Jansz. Storck, also named Sturckenburch, probably trained Abraham and his brothers Johannes and Jacobus. All specialize in maritime, urban and river views. Abraham set up his own workshop in Amsterdam around the mid-1660s and developed a very broad repertoire: ships on the open sea, battles, storms, calm ports, whaling, naval parades and towns seen from the water. His precise design of hulls, sails, rigging and pavilions meets the expectations of a clientele linked to commerce and the navy. However, Storck is not a simple librarian. He organizes the space, in large luminous planes, uses clouds often tinged with pink and transforms the port into a theater. Influenced by Willem van de Velde the Younger, Ludolf Bakhuizen and Jan Abrahamsz. Beerstraten, it combines nautical accuracy and atmospheric elegance. His travels in Germany nourish landscapes of the Rhine, while his Mediterranean ports, sometimes imaginary, mix classical architecture, ruins, Dutch boats and southern light. It also depicts contemporary events, including official arrivals and parties on the Amstel, where crowds, banners and yachts transform water into ceremonial space. Admitted to the guild of Saint-Luc from Amsterdam, he runs a productive workshop whose assistants sometimes participate in the paintings. This organization explains certain variations in quality, but also the extent of its influence. Ships and boats on the sea sums up his art: ships are seriously observed, but the rhythm of the sails, the breathing of the sky and the staggering of boats give the motif a decorative grace. Storck lived near the port of Amsterdam at the end of his career and died there in 1708. He belonged to the last great generation of marine painters of the Golden Age, when the precision of the ship also became a memory of a collective power. The "Abraham Storck" selection puts particularly with regard to Ships and boats on the sea. His reading favors figures.

At Storck, the sea is at once road, stage and mirror: the ship becomes a portrait of the city which built it.