Fish Auction near the Fire Beacon at Zandvoort

Vast cloudy skies and a low horizon capture the atmosphere of the Dutch coastline, recognisable also by the distinctive square fire beacon at Zandvoort, Haarlem. At the painting’s centre, an inter-generational family are busy preparing and selling fish from the day’s catch. An old woman sits on the sandbank surrounded by baskets of fish which are tended by her family behind. Young children play around her, one lying over her lap while two others play on a log in the foreground. A white dog sniffs curiously at a dark brown flat fish – perhaps a plaice – lying among several large silvery fish on the sand. A laden white horse munches grain from a sack. Three men, one in a plumed hat mounted on a brown horse, are in the process of agreeing a price with the fisherman in blue leaning over the basket of fish between them. From the verticality on the painting’s right side – with the tall wooden hoist, pointed thatched hut, the towering beacon and distant church spire – the composition slopes diagonally down to a lively sea on the left. Among the waves are little ships known as ‘pinks’, which were rolled up onto the beach with the help of logs like the one in the foreground.

Prolific Dutch painter Philips Wouwerman (1619-68) painted only a handful of beach scenes, mostly depicting fisherpeople selling their catch, as shown here. Haarlem was Wouwerman’s birthplace and where he mostly worked throughout his life – no doubt he would have known this coastline well.