Exhibit–The Van de Veldes: Greenwich, Art and the Sea
“The Van de Veldes: Greenwich, Art and the Sea” is an exhibition that will run from March 2, 2023 to January 14, 2024 at the Queen’s House, which is part of the Maritime Greenwich UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This exhibition marks 350 years since the arrival of Willem van de Velde the Elder and Willem van de Velde the Younger in Greenwich, the father-and-son team who established the English school of marine painting and inspired artists, including J.M.W. Turner. They were invited by Charles II, who granted them a studio at the Queen’s House in Greenwich.
Greenwich was originally the home of a royal palace, not far from the dockyards in Deptford and Woolwich. It was demolished and replaced with the Royal Naval Hospital in 1694 and the Royal Naval College in 1873.
In 1675, the Royal Observatory was founded in Greenwich to help reliably calculate longitude using astronomical data, helping seafarers navigate and reducing shipwrecks. While the observatory was under construction, the first Astronomer Royal shared the Queen’s House with the Van de Veldes.
In 1884, the International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C., established the Greenwich Meridian as the Prime Meridian, longitude 0°.