1. Isaac Sailmaker was referred to in contemporary books and journals as "the father of British sea painting", but was eclipsed by his contemporaries, the Dutch marine painters Willem van de Velde the Elder and his son Willem van de Velde the Younger, who for a period dominated the London market.
The attribution of Isaac Sailmaker's surviving paintings has been problematic, as his works were never signed.
Isaac Sailmaker, whose family name was probably Zeilmaker, was born in 1633 in the village of Scheveningen in the Dutch Republic.
Isaac Sailmaker 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.
An exact contemporary of the Dutch marine painter Willem van de Velde the Younger, Isaac Sailmaker was eclipsed by van de Velde and his father Willem van de Velde the Elder when they moved to London in the 1670s.
Isaac Sailmaker was one of Britain's earliest marine painters, and was referred to in contemporary catalogues and books as "the father of British sea painting".
Isaac Sailmaker was the first marine painter from England to depict naval action involving an English fleet using oils.
Isaac 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 Isaac 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.
Paintings attributed to Isaac Sailmaker include ship portraits and depictions of various naval actions.
Isaac 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.
Identification of Isaac Sailmaker's work is aided by characteristics of his artistic style, such as his depiction of ruffles across ships' flags, his palette, which was limited to variations of grey, green and black, and his method of using raised gold 'blobs' to show the gilding on his ships instead of flat brush strokes.
Horace Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England mentioned Isaac Sailmaker, noting only that he produced a painting commissioned by Cromwell, and that a 1714 engraving of a fleet action was made from one of Isaac Sailmaker's works.
Isaac Sailmaker described the work as "this uninspired group of ships and galleys" which "indicates admirably how little was the English painter's skill three years before the younger van de Velde died".