01 Marine Painting, Edward William Cook's Zuider Zee fishing craft drying nets in the harbour of Spaarndam, with Footnotes #286

Edward William Cooke, RA (BRITISH, 1811-1880)

Detail; Zuider Zee fishing craft drying nets in the harbour of Spaarndam, c. 1847

Oil on canvas

46 x 91.5cm (18 1/8 x 36in)

Private collection

Edward William Cooke, RA (BRITISH, 1811-1880)

Zuider Zee fishing craft drying nets in the harbour of Spaarndam, c. 1847

Oil on canvas

46 x 91.5cm (18 1/8 x 36in)

Private collection

Sold for £12,562.50 in June 2020

Zuider Zee fishing craft were to feed the population in the surrounding areas. From 1850 onward, the market increased in size and Zuiderzee fishing became economically important to the Netherlands. Around 1900 there were about 2000 fishing boats, mostly small businesses with one boat per family. 

During the same period, substantial companies were on the rise in North sea fishing, threatening to outstrip the Zuiderzee fishermen.  The increasingly serious plans to close off and partly impolder the Zuiderzee discouraged the fishermen to make investments and modernize their ships. When in 1920 the Zuiderzee Works started, this spelled the end of Zuiderzee fishing.

There were many different types of fishing boats. Fishing methods, local sailing conditions, and local ship building traditions determined the appearance of the boats, of which the most well-known is the 'botter'. More on Zuider Zee


Spaarndam is a small village in the province of North Holland, the Netherlands, on the Spaarne river and the IJ lake. Spaarndam was created around a dam where the river Spaarne flows into the IJ. This dam was built here by count Floris V of Holland in 1285. The village collected toll at this dam, and people made their living from fishing. From 1812 to 1927, the western part of Spaarndam was an independent municipality. More on Spaarndam

Edward William Cooke, R.A., F.R.S., F.Z.S., F.S.A., F.G.S. (27 March 1811 – 4 January 1880) was an English landscape and marine painter, and gardener. Cooke was born in Pentonville, London. He was raised in the company of artists. He was a precocious draughtsman and a skilled engraver from an early age, displayed an equal preference for marine subjects and published his "Shipping and Craft" – a series of accomplished engravings – when he was 18, in 1829. Cooke began painting in oils in 1833, and first exhibited at the Royal Academy and British Institution in 1835, by which time his style was essentially formed.

He went on to travel and paint with great industry at home and abroad, indulging his love of the 17th-century Dutch marine artists with a visit to the Netherlands in 1837. He returned regularly over the next 23 years, studying the effects of the coastal landscape and light, as well as the works of the country's Old Masters, resulting in highly successful paintings. He went on to travel in Scandinavia, Spain, North Africa and, above all, to Venice. In 1858, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician. . More Edward William Cooke

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