The art collection of the Estonian Maritime Museum was born in tandem with the maritime museum in the beginning of the 1930s. This book, for the first time, gives a thorough overview of the fate and content of that art collection. In addition, it also focusses on marine painting as one of the most popular painting genres and discusses what we should pay attention to when looking at a painting of a ship.

What’s special about the art collection of the maritime museum? A large proportion of the artists of its works have not studied at art colleges but at sea – they have been sailors, fishermen, ship captains. The call of the sea has been in their blood and soul.