van Emmerik was a highly skilled Dutch artist and a pupil of renowned Dutch marine artist Petrus Johannes Schotel. He was born and brought-up in Dordrecht, upstream from Rotterdam on the Rhine estuary. He moved to Hamburg in 1861 but continued to exhibit in the Netherlands as well as Hamburg. He is represented in the Nederlands Schepvaart Museum, Amsterdam and the Dordrecht Museum. His paintings continue the rich, centuries old tradition of Dutch marine painters, always in touch with the vernacular pursuits of the North Sea.
The picture illustrates a pair of work-a-day Dutch kaags hauling a trawl in a boisterous sea. The boats are luffed-up into the breeze with the crew of the boat in the foreground hauling the net from the stern.
Oil on canvas.
395 mm x 490 mm. (Sight-line.)
Fine, gilded frame.
Signed lower right.
Undated but mid-ninteenth century.