Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Dutch, 1831 - 1915
Boats at Sea, c. 1897
Oil on canvas
71 by 57cm., 28 by 22½in.
Private collection
Hendrik Willem Mesdag (23 February 1831 – 10 July 1915) was a Dutch marine painter born in Groningen. Mesdag was encouraged by his
father, an amateur painter, to study art. He married Sina van Houten in 1856,
and when they inherited a fortune from her father, Mesdag retired at the age of
35 to pursue a career as a painter.
He studied
in Brussels with Willem Roelofs and in 1868 moved to The Hague to paint the
sea. In 1870 he exhibited at the Paris Salon and won the gold medal for The
Breakers of the North Sea.
In 1880 he
received a commission from a Belgian company to paint a panorama giving a view
over the village of Scheveningen on the North Sea coast near The Hague. With
the help of Sina and students he completed the enormous painting, Panorama
Mesdag,— 14 m high and 120 m around — by 1881. However, the vogue for panoramas
was coming to an end, and when the company operating it went bust in 1886,
Mesdag purchased the painting at auction and thereafter funding its operating
losses from his own pocket.
He joined the art society of The Hague (the Pulchri Studio)
and in 1889 was elected chairman. In 1903 he gave his house at Laan van
Meerdervoort and his collection of paintings to the Netherlands; the house is
now the Museum Mesdag. More on Hendrik
Willem Mesdag
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