LUDOLPH, an eminent painter, was born at Embden in 1631, and received his earliest instruction from Albert Van Everdingen; but acquired his principal knowledge by frequenting the painting rooms of different great masters, and observing their various methods of touching and colouring. One of these masters was Henry Dubbels, whose understanding in his art was very extensive: and he was as remarkably communicative of his knowledge to others. From him Backhuyzen obtained more real benefit than from all the painters of his time, either by studying their works, or personally conversing with them. His subjects were sea-pieces, ships, and sea-ports. He had not practised very long when he became the object of general admiration; so that even his drawings were sought after, and several of them were bought up at 100 florins a-piece. It was observed of him, that while he was painting, he would not suffer even his most intimate friends to have access to him, lest his fancy might be disturbed, and the ideas he had formed in his mind be interrupted. He studied nature attentively in all her forms; in gales, calms, storms, clouds, rocks, skies, lights, and shadows; and he expressed every subject with so sweet a pencil, and such transparency and lustre, as placed him above all the artists of his time in that style, except the younger Vandervelde, who is deservedly esteemed the first in that manner of painting. It was a frequent custom with Backhuyzen, whenever he could procure resolute mariners, to go to sea in a storm, in order to store his mind with grand images, directly copied from nature, of such scenes as would have filled any other head and heart with terror and dismay; and the moment he landed he always impatiently ran to his palette to secure those incidents, of which the traces might by delay be obliterated.—He perfectly understood the management of the chiaroscuro, and by his skill in that part of his art, he gave uncommon force and beauty to his objects. He observed strictly the art of perspective, in the distances of his vessels, the receding of the grounds on the shores, and the different buildings which he described in the sea-ports; whether they were the result of his own imagination, or sketched, as he usually did, after nature. His works may easily be distinguished by an observant eye, from the freedom and neatness of his touch; from the clearness and natural agitation or quiescence of the water; from a peculiar tint in his clouds and skies; and also from the exact proportions of Backhuyzen of his ships, and the gracefulness of their position. For the burgomasters of Amsterdam he painted a large picture, with a multitude of vessels, and a view of the city at a distance, for which they gave him thirteen hundred guilders, and a considerable present; which picture afterwards presented to the king of France, who placed it in the Louvre. No painter was ever more honoured by the visits of Kings and princes than Backhuyzen; the king of Prussia was one of the number; and the czar Peter the Great took delight to see him paint, and often endeavoured to draw after vessels which he had designed. He was remarkably affiduous, and yet it seems astonishing to consider the number of pictures which he finished, and the exquisite manner in which they are painted. He died in 1709.