A Mediterranean Shipping Scene with Figures on the Beach and a Harbour and Clifftop Castle beyond

Oil on canvas, signed
71.8 x 110.5 cms
28 ¼ x 43 ½ ins

It seems that Lorenzo da Castro’s early training was in Antwerp and his work displays some influence of the major Netherlandish painter Abraham Storck. His family had probably escaped the Jewish persecution of the Portuguese Inquisition in the early 1600s and it is probable that he is related to Laureys A Castro who was Master of the Antwerp Guild in 1664-65. He was clearly well travelled and knew a good number of the Mediterranean ports such as Genoa, Malta and Lisbon. Many of his paintings are capriccio views of these ports.

He came to work in England and possibly settled here around 1670. A number of commissions were given to him at this time, notably six pictures for William Cartwright. These pictures were among Cartwright’s collection which he bequeathed to Dulwich College on his death in1686, and which formed the nucleus of the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Lorenzo da Castro tended to stick to a certain composition: on the left are Mediterranean galleys, either at anchor or in stormy seas, while a densely populated shore, with exotically dressed figures, juts in from the right. There was a healthy demand for this type of paintings and they were perhaps intended as a memento from an individual’s travels along the Mediterranean coastline. He is also known to have painted a few portraits.