Jan van de Cappelle

Jan van de Cappelle painted calm water. His best pictures show ships at rest on a still estuary, their sails reflected in water like a mirror, under huge cloudy skies. Nothing much happens, and that is the point: the mood is quiet, golden and spacious.

He was baptised in Amsterdam in 1626 and lived there all his life. He was largely self-taught, probably with some guidance from Simon de Vlieger, and he painted in his spare time: his main work was running the family dye business. That left him wealthy, and he built one of the great art collections of his day, including many Rembrandt drawings. He painted fewer than 150 pictures. The National Gallery in London has nine, the largest group anywhere, and others are in the Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis. He died in 1679.

In A State Yacht and Other Craft in Calm Water, look at how the sky fills most of the canvas.