The Town Hostel
17th century
Medium
Etching; state II
Dimensions
sheet: 7 3/8 x 12 5/16 in. (18.7 x 31.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1960
Accession Number
60.621.58
Tags
Art Historical Context
**The Town Hostel** is a lively 17th-century etching Reinier Nooms, known as Zeeman ("sailor" in Dutch), a Dutch artist renowned for his vivid marine and harbor scenes during the Golden Age. Created around the mid-1600s, this state II impression captures a bustling waterfront with boats, buildings, and human figures, evoking energy of Dutch port life. Nooms, who began as a sailor before turning art, drew from personal experience to depict everyday maritime activity with remarkable detail and immediacy. Etching, Nooms' preferred medium, allowed him to incise intricate lines into a metal plate ...
About the Artist
Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman
Reinier Nooms, known as Zeeman ("sailor" in Dutch), was a prominent Dutch maritime painter, draftsman, and etcher of the Golden Age, born around 1623 or 1624 in Amsterdam and dying there in 1664 at about age 40. Before turning to art around 1643, he led a rough life as a professional seaman, which informed his unparalleled accuracy in depicting ships, ports, naval battles, and coastal scenes—knowl...