When the connoisseur Gerrit Braamcamp died in 1771 the public sale of his assortment was one in every of Amsterdam’s occasions of the 12 months. Some 20,000 individuals noticed it; 2,000 copies of {the catalogue} had been offered.
The 2 most respected work – a triptych by Gerard Dou referred to as The Nursery and Giant Drove of Oxen by Paulus Potter – had been purchased by brokers of Catherine the Nice, together with ten different masterpieces. Dou’s triptych, specifically, was thought of one of many biggest works of the Dutch Golden Age, on a par with Rembrandt’s Nightwatch.
Catherine would by no means see her acquisitions, nonetheless. The works had been loaded on to the Vrouw Maria, which sailed for St Petersburg on 5 September. The majority of the cargo was sugar, however there was a lot else in addition to: madder and brazilwood, herring and cheese, clay pipes and silver.
However on 3 October the ship foundered in a storm within the Finnish archipelago. The crew survived and spent six days frantically salvaging what cargo they may, however the Vrouw Maria sank with its artwork treasures nonetheless packed tight in its higher maintain. They had been nonetheless there when the wreck was found in June 1999 in 40-odd metres of water. The ship is sort of completely preserved. Its artwork? Maybe it’s higher to not know.