VERBEECK, Cornelis

Dutch painter. He was a marine painter painting mainly seascapes influenced by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom. He was known as Smit for his temperamental similarity to a smith in several fights and brawls.

The earliest documentation pertaining to Verbeeck appears in a statement the artist gave to a Haarlem notary on April 2, 1609, in regard to his involvement in a tavern brawl. The statement provides his place of residence as just outside of the city walls and his age as eighteen. In December of the same year, Verbeeck married Haarlem native Anna Pietersdr.

The artist had, however, already been active for many years in Haarlem, where he first appeared in the records of the Saint Luke’s Guild in 1610, and again in 1634 as a master painter. Verbeeck’s name also frequently appears in the archives in Haarlem, mostly in connection with tavern brawls. On October 31, 1612, Verbeeck was sentenced on two charges for inflicting serious injuries, stab wounds, and lacerations on the brothers Huybert and Jan Huybertsz. And again, in 1628, the artist was banished from a tavern with a warning not to “offend, injure or molest” the proprietor.

Despite his many run-ins with the law, Verbeeck enjoyed success as a painter in Haarlem. He primarily created small-scale scenes of naval battles, ships floundering off rocky coasts, and beach scenes, as well as a few large-scale paintings of historical events. Although there is no evidence that Verbeeck studied with the Haarlem marine painter Hendrick Cornelis Vroom, he was clearly influenced by him, especially in his treatment of choppy waves with white, hairlike spray and deep troughs.

Verbeeck’s later paintings move away from Vroom’s influence and include more complex compositions and a naturalistic rendering of waves. Verbeeck’s seascapes fetched some of the highest prices among that genre and his paintings appear in multiple inventories of middle- and upper-class patrons in Haarlem.