Seaport

Hans de Jode signed and dated this canvas in 1657, during his years in Italy, and it shows what a northern painter picked up there. The figures busy on the quay come from the Bamboccianti, the Dutch and Flemish painters in Rome who made their name with scenes of ordinary street life, called after the nickname of one of them, Pieter van Laer, il Bamboccio. The harbour itself, with its classical buildings and towers, is the kind of southern port that Dutch painters working in Italy, such as Nicolaes Berchem and Karel Dujardin, liked to paint for buyers who wanted the light and look of Italy. In November 2015 it was one of the 17 paintings taken from the museum in an armed robbery, and it came back with the others at the end of 2016.