Willem van de Velde the Younger

(Leiden 1633-1707 Greenwich)

A battle of the Third Anglo Dutch War, probably the London at the Battle of the Texel, August 1673

Footnotes

Provenance
Believed to have been bought by James Christie (1730-1803) and by descent through the family until offered
Sale, Christie's, London, 14 November 1997, lot 64, where purchased by the late owner

Exhibited
Norwich, Castle Museum, Norfolk Maritime History, 1957, no. 2 (as 'Battle of Solebay, May 28, 1672')

Literature
M.S. Robinson, The Paintings of the Willem van de Veldes, London, 1990, vol. I, pp. 221-3, no. 71, ill.

The late Michael Robinson, Keeper of Pictures at the National Maritime Museum, London, described the present painting as 'a work substantially by the Younger' van de Velde, and as was often the case, there may be studio participation in incidental elements of the background. A slightly larger variant, described by Robinson as 'mainly the work of Van de Velde's studio', is in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut (B. 1973. 1.60).

Robinson suggested the probability that the principal ship depicted here is the London at the battle of the Texel, which took place in August 1673. Sir Edward Spragge was Vice-Admiral of the Red at the Battle of Solebay in 1672, but he was promoted soon after the battle to Admiral of the Blue before the van de Veldes came to England, and is unlikely to have commissioned a picture of the London when he was Vice-Admiral; he was drowned the following year at the Battle of the Texel. In 1673, Sir John Harman was Vice-Admiral of the Red at the Battles of Schooneveld and the Texel in the London. It was at the Texel that the Dutch officer Jan de Liefde was killed in the Vrijheid, when he was Vice-Admiral in de Ruyter's squadron, which was heavily engaged with the English red squadron. It would be reasonable to expect that van de Velde would be asked by Harman to show the Vrijheid in her damaged state in action with the London. Other details of the background ships would also be correct for this battle. The Dutch ship with the common Dutch flag at the main would be Aert van Nes in the Eendracht as second in command to de Ruyter; and the red flag below the Eendracht's topsail would be the flag of Sir John Chicheley, Rear-Admiral of the Red in the Charles.

The London was a large second-rate ship built in 1670 on the bottom of what remained of the Loyal London after her sinking by the Dutch on the Medway in 1667. There are two drawings by van de Velde which show her stern, one in the Boymans Museum in Rotterdam (inv. no. MB 1866/T441), and the other in the Science Museum, London (inv. no. 1865-52). The sterns are not exactly alike; nor are the drawings exactly like the painting, but the main constructional features are alike: for example, the drawings do not show the four round gunports that the painting shows cut in the decoration at the upper deck level or the two gunports in the decoration at the middle deck level; the prominent prancing horses with riders either side of the stern lantern are not in the drawings; the drawings also show, as in some paintings, the four principal decorated stern timbers continuing to the quarterdeck level, whereas in the two versions of this painting they stop at the upper deck level, where the four large gunports are showing; these ports do not appear in the drawings, although the Boymans drawing does have the word 'poorten' written by the Elder van de Velde at this level.