Shipwreck off a Rocky Coast

Nothing like this coast exists in the Netherlands, where the sea meets only dunes and flat sand. Nuijen, a painter from The Hague, set his wreck under tall pale cliffs, the kind of scenery Romantic painters loved. The ship lies heeled over in the surf with its masts snapped. On the beach the rescue is already under way. Men haul the drowned out of the water, others raise their arms toward the wreck, and further back the survivors crowd round a fire to get warm. The sand in front is strewn with what the sea has thrown up, barrels, a sail, broken timber. Overhead the storm is breaking, and a pale light pushes through the clouds. The painting once belonged to the Antwerp collector Oscar Nottebohm. It was sold together with its companion piece in 1974, and the Rijksmuseum bought it the following year.