Bonaventura PEETERS (1614-1652) (att. to) - View of port

Oil on canvas
Size: 82 x 125 cm

This painting is very similar to a known painting by the artist kept in Brussels and entitled “Port d’Orient”.
Presented as a Venetian scene, we see soldiers wearing Ottoman clothes and hairstyles. The banners on the masts of the boats bear the Ottoman crescent
The scene seems to depict the landing of survivors of a shipwreck or a naval battle.
The very Italianate sculpture which dominates the port undoubtedly evokes the Venetian presence, then dominant power. The succession of conflicts between Venice and the Ottoman Empire stretched from 1463 to 1718. At the time when the painter worked, the fifth Veneto-Ottoman war was taking place, after which Crete returned to Ottoman control. .