Schip bij een overslagkade 1797 - 1838

This graphite drawing of a ship at a quay was made by Johannes Christiaan Schotel, sometime in the first half of the 19th century. Schotel was a well-known maritime painter in the Netherlands, a country whose cultural and economic life has always been tied to the sea. The drawing is simple, but it shows how ships were essential to the Dutch economy in the 1800s. If you look closely, you can see the details of the ship's rigging and the way it's docked at the quay for loading and unloading. This was a common scene in Dutch ports, where ships from all over the world came to trade. Schotel made many drawings like this, probably as studies for larger paintings. As historians, we can use sources like port records, shipping logs, and economic data to understand the social and economic context of this drawing. Art helps us see how deeply maritime trade was embedded in the Dutch culture of that time.