Isaac Sailmaker
The attribution of Sailmaker's surviving paintings has been problematic, as his works were never signed. Other paintings have been attributed to him on the basis of engravings after his work; his painting of the second Eddystone Lighthouse, built in 1709, was firmly attributed to Sailmaker in the 1970s on the basis of such documentary evidence. His style can also be identified by its reliance on a relatively narrow palette, principally black, greys and greens, and by minor details within his paintings, such as the way he depicted flags and gilding.
Life
What is known about Isaac Sailmaker's life comes from notes published by the 18th century engraver, artist, and antiquary George Vertue.
Sailmaker, whose family name was probably Zeilmaker, was born in 1633 in the village of Scheveningen in the Dutch Republic. He came to London at a young age and became one of the first apprentices of George Geldorp or Gelders, a Flemish portraitist and art dealer who had bought a studio after moving to London from the Dutch Republic. As a portraitist, Geldorp did not provide his young pupil with a typical marine artist's education, and it is unlikely Sailmaker's interest in marine painting was inspired by his teacher.
An exact contemporary of the Dutch marine painter Willem van de Velde the Younger, Sailmaker was eclipsed by van de Velde and his father Willem van de Velde the Elder when they moved to London in the 1670s. Sailmaker, along with Jan van de Hagen, Jacob Knijff, and the most talented of the group, Peter Monamy, were members of the Younger van de Velde's London studio; they all continued van de Velde's artistic style. Sailmaker, who may have been a copyist in the van de Velde studio, outlived both father and son, and was still painting into his eighties. He was one of Britain's earliest marine painters, and was referred to in contemporary catalogues and books as "the father of British sea painting". He was the first marine painter from England to depict naval action involving an English fleet using oils. Sailmaker is known to have for worked for England's Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell during the 1650s, but most of his known works date from the 1680s. Vertue wrote that Sailmaker "employed himself always in painting views, small and great, many sea-ports and ships about England" and calls him "a constant labourer", which suggests that he produced a large body of work during his lifetime.
At the end of his life, Sailmaker was living in a house along King's Bench Walk in the Temple Bar area of the city of London. He died at home on 28 June 1721.
Artistic style and attributions
Paintings attributed to Sailmaker include ship portraits and depictions of various naval actions. He was commissioned by Cromwell to paint the English fleet at Fort-Mardyck, prior to the fort's capture by an Anglo-French force in September 1657, but all his commissioned paintings from Cromwell, and also from the politician John Lovett, are now lost.
Sailmaker's surviving works reveal that he painted in a basic version of the Dutch style, making portraits of ships side on, stern and bow view. His only contemporary marine artist in England, Monamy, developed a technically advanced style and produced works that were brighter and more colourful than other paintings which emerged from the Van de Velde studio—in comparison to Sailmaker, he was a more competent and realistic artist.
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