Three Ships and other Boats on a Wharf (after Willem van de Velde)

A prominent advocate for Dutch art both in England and in his native country, Cornelis Apostool was also an expert printmaker who produced numerous reproductive etchings after seventeenth-century landscape masters. Some of the artists Apostool took as models bridged two national traditions. For example, William van de Velde the Younger moved at the age of about forty to England, where he found it politic to begin portraying English rather than Dutch naval victories. Allart van Everdingen, for his part, made a trip to Sweden and Norway which continued to mark his work after his move back to the Netherlands. The Scandinavian motifs he incorporated into his compositions made a profound impression on Jacob van Ruisdael and other artists who followed Everdingen.