Fisherman with Pack over His Shoulder

Art Historical Context

In this atmospheric print, a solitary fisherman stands on a rocky shore at the right, a large pack slung over his shoulder as he gazes toward the water. A two-masted sailboat rocks on choppy waves nearby, while smaller vessels appear in the distance beneath a dramatic sky. Broad, sweeping clouds dominate the upper half of the composition, with dramatic shafts of light breaking through on the right to illuminate the scene in soft gradations of tone. Created in chalk manner and aquatint with etching on laid paper, the work reproduces a marine subject by the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Ludolf Backhuysen. Cornelis Ploos van Amstel served as editor and Cornelis Brouwer as printmaker for this sheet, dated 1779 and published in 1781. The technique allows the image to evoke the subtle textures and luminous effects of a drawing while preserving the original composition’s sense of movement and weather. Such prints made accomplished seascapes widely available to collectors in the late eighteenth century, bringing the drama of the Dutch coast into domestic settings. The National Gallery of Art’s impression measures just over five by eight inches, its trimmed sheet highlighting the intimate scale of the reproduction.