Battles and Fleets to 1700
The galleys of Lepanto. The Armada in the Channel and the fireships of Calais. The Royal Charles towed away from the Medway as a Dutch prize, and the Royal James burning at Solebay. Painted by artists who knew these ships, and sometimes sailed with the fleets to draw them.
This chapter of Ships in Paintings holds 65 works. For each one you will find the artist and, wherever the records allow, the date and where the original is kept; then what the ship brings to the picture, and the real ship behind it when there is one. See all 1,331 works on one page.
Marea can build any of these ships as a scale model, with the maximum detail the scale permits, finished to be inspected. We can build her as the artist saw her: the same rig, the same sails set, the same colours. It isn’t a copy of a painting. It’s the ship, stepping out of it.
This database was put together by Ai Refloat™, Marea’s own artificial intelligence, from the records of museums, maritime archives and published sources. Ai Refloat is still young & like any teenager, it can be a little volatile and unpredictable at times, but above all, it is learning fast. So this list may well contain mistakes and we welcome the input of everyone who knows these paintings, photographs and ships better than we do: listening, correcting and learning is one of the many ways we work towards perfection in this craft.
When no free image of a work exists, we show instead the museum or the place where the original can be seen.
Have you spotted a mistake? Tell us which painting, photograph or ship, and we will amend it accordingly. Tell us here
The works
Battles to 1700 · Tapestry
The Norman invasion fleet of 1066 Unnamed
The Bayeux Tapestry, late 11th century
Artist Unknown embroiderers
Where to see it Bayeux Museum, Bayeux (on loan to the British Museum, London, 2026 to 2027)
Medium Wool embroidery on linen
Nearly 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall, the Bayeux Tapestry tells the Norman conquest of England in coloured wool on linen, and ships are among its heroes: 41 ships and boats among its 623 figures and 994 animals. It is generally thought to have been commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William's half-brother, and historians value it as a record of eleventh-century life, clothing, castles and ships included. In September 2026 it left France for the first time in its history, on loan to the British Museum, so the invasion fleet crossed the Channel once more.
The vessels The Norman fleet carried William's army across the Channel in 1066; the Tapestry is among the principal pictures of ships of that period.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Bayeux Museum, Bayeux, where the original is kept. Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Venetian and papal war galleys at Santa Maura Unnamed
Jacopo Pesaro being presented by Pope Alexander VI to Saint Peter, c. 1506 to 1511
Artist Titian (1488 or 1490 to 1576)
Where to see it Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp (KMSKA 357)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned as an ex-voto for the Venetian naval victory that retook Santa Maura (Lefkada) from the Ottomans in August 1502, the altarpiece shows Bishop Jacopo Pesaro, papal legate and commander of the papal fleet, kneeling before Saint Peter, a standard with Pope Alexander VI's arms in his hand and his helmet set down beside him. Between his head and the saint, war galleys can be seen in action on the sea. They are the reason for the whole picture: the Pope had contributed thirteen galleys to a fleet commanded by Pesaro's cousin Benedetto, and the little battle is the thanksgiving made visible.
The vessels Oared war galleys of the Venetian and papal fleets in the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499 to 1503; Alexander VI contributed 13 galleys to the mainly Venetian force that took Santa Maura in 1502.
Sources Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai Named ship
Portuguese Carracks off a Rocky Coast, c. 1540
Artist Circle of Joachim Patinir (possibly Jan or Matthijs Cock)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0705)
Medium Oil on panel
This is the oldest painting of the sea by a Flemish or Flemish-trained artist in the National Maritime Museum, and one of the few contemporary paintings of ships of the first half of the sixteenth century. Ten ships, a caravel, three galleys and a rowing barge sail off a fortified coast. At the centre is thought to be the Portuguese carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai, firing salutes, dressed for a royal wedding voyage: in 1521 she is thought to have carried the Infanta Beatriz to Villefranche to marry the Duke of Savoy, her cabin furnished with brocade, carpets and velvet cushions. The painter even marks the coded bonnets laced to her mainsail.
“the oldest painting of the sea by a Flemish or Flemish-trained artist”
The real ship The Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai was built of teak at Cochin in India in 1510 as one of the large armed merchant ships of the Portuguese East Indies trade; she is thought to have carried the Infanta Beatriz of Portugal to Villefranche in 1521 for her marriage to Charles III, Duke of Savoy.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · picryl.com
Image: Circle of Joachim Patinir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The Holy League and Ottoman galleys at Lepanto Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, between 1571 and 1608
Artist Georgios Klontzas (c. 1535 to 1608)
Medium Painting
Georgios Klontzas, a scholar and painter of Heraklion in Venetian Crete, is known for complex compositions populated with countless figures, and his Battle of Lepanto is counted among his most popular works. Here the whole sea is filled with galley squadrons, packed so densely that the panel reads like a tapestry of oars and hulls, while above them, in a band of gold, saints ride on the clouds. A painter from the Greek world under Venetian rule, he gives the great Christian victory the heavenly witnesses of an icon. It offers a view of Lepanto from the eastern Mediterranean rather than from Rome or Madrid.
The vessels At Lepanto on 7 October 1571 a Christian fleet of over 200 galleys, mainly Venetian and Spanish, defeated the Turkish fleet.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Georgios Klontzas; photo Tzim78, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The galleys of the Holy League and the Ottoman fleet Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, c. 1572
Artist Paolo Veronese (1528 to 1588)
Where to see it Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
Medium Oil on canvas
Veronese made Lepanto a picture of two worlds. Below, the battle: galleys packed together in a haze of smoke, painted with a masterly play of tone and light. Above a curtain of cloud, Saints Peter, Roch, Justina and Mark implore the Virgin for victory, and an angel answers by hurling burning arrows at the Turkish ships. This small canvas was probably an ex-voto commissioned by Pietro Giustinian of Murano, who had fought in the battle, for the church of St Peter Martyr on Murano. It is a thank-offering from a survivor, painted around 1572.
The vessels At Lepanto on 7 October 1571 a Christian fleet of over 200 galleys, mainly Venetian and Spanish, defeated the Turkish fleet in the last great galley action.
Sources wga.hu · Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The galley fleets of the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto (fresco in the Sala Regia), 1572 to 1573
Artist Giorgio Vasari (1511 to 1574) and workshop
Where to see it Sala Regia, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City
Medium Fresco
In the Sala Regia, the hall of the Apostolic Palace built for receiving princes and royal ambassadors, the Battle of Lepanto takes its place among the turning points of Church history, painted by Giorgio Vasari and his assistants in 1572 to 1573. The fresco shows the two fleets drawn up for battle, long wings of galleys converging on the heavy ships at the centre. In front of them three figures, one wearing the papal tiara, join hands for the Holy League, while on the other side a skeleton Death with his scythe falls on the defeated. It is Lepanto as papal diplomacy, on the walls of the Vatican itself.
The vessels At Lepanto on 7 October 1571 a Christian fleet of over 200 galleys, with galleasses, defeated the Turkish fleet in the last great galley action.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Print
The Holy League and Ottoman fleets in battle order Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto (Navalis Victoriae exemplar), 1572
Artist Martin Rota (c. 1540 to 1583)
Where to see it Newberry Library, Chicago; another impression at the Real Academia Española
Medium Engraving
Published in Venice by Donato Bertelli in 1572, a year after the battle, Martin Rota's engraving claims to show the order of the whole fleet more faithfully than before, drawn, its Latin inscription says, from accounts of many who had fought there. It names the three commanders, Marcantonio Colonna of Rome, Don John of Austria and the Venetian Sebastiano Venier, and places the fight off the Echinades, not far from Naupactus. Prints like this spread the news of Lepanto across Europe and fixed the image of the battle as a vast clash of galley squadrons.
“Navalis Victoriae exemplar, qua Nonis Octobris ad scopulos Echinadum in Jonio”
The vessels The battle was fought on 7 October 1571 near the Echinades islands, not far from Naupactus (Lepanto), in the Ionian Sea, as the inscription records.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The galley fleets of the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, 7 October 1571, late 16th century
Artist Unidentified artist (signed 'HLETTER')
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0261)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lepanto was the last great galley action, fought after the loss of Cyprus by a Christian league of Venetian, Spanish, Papal and Genoese galleys under Don Juan of Austria, and remembered for its dead: about 25,000 Turks and 8,000 Christians. This late sixteenth-century canvas imagines it with a high horizon and a sea littered with galleys locked in combat. Italian inscriptions, some now fragmentary, name the protagonists, from Gian Andrea Doria and Marc'Antonio Colonna to Ali Pasha and the corsairs Caur Ali and Kara Hodja. It probably derives from a woodcut by Cristoforo Guerra published in Venice, and through the paint of its lower half an older heraldic cartouche shows.
“the last great galley action”
The vessels Galleys were long oared warships, the standard fighting ship of the Mediterranean; at Lepanto a Christian fleet of over 200 galleys met the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Lepanto, now Naupactos. The galleasses also shown were an attempt to combine a broadside of guns with oars.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The English fleet and the Spanish Armada Unnamed
Elizabeth I (the 'Armada Portrait'), c. 1588
Artist English School, 16th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (ZBA7719), displayed in the Queen's House
Medium Oil on oak panel
The most famous image of Elizabeth I is also a sea picture. Behind the queen, her hand on a globe, two views open on the Armada. On the left English fireships drift towards the Spanish fleet; on the right the Spanish ships are driven onto a rocky coast amid stormy seas by the Protestant Wind. Elizabeth turns her back on storm and darkness while sunlight shines where she gazes. The museum reads the contrast as the good Protestant government of England set against the despotic Catholic rule of Philip II. This version was bought for the nation in 2016 for £10.3 million and hangs in the Queen's House, on the site of her birthplace.
“the Armada wrecked by storms on the (mainly Irish) coast”
The vessels The Spanish Armada of 1588 was Philip II's great fleet against England; after the fireship attack off Calais and the Battle of Gravelines, storms wrecked many of its ships on the voyage home, mainly on the Irish coast.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Ark Royal and a Spanish galleass Named ship
English Ships and the Spanish Armada, August 1588
Artist English School, 16th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0262)
Medium Oil on poplar panel
Probably the Battle of Gravelines, and dateable to the years just after 1588, this panel is half record and half satire. At its centre a Spanish galleass flies the papal banner and the arms of Spain, crewed by sinister zealots led by a preaching monk, with a skeleton in a jester's costume aboard: a ship of fools. A distraught Spaniard, perhaps Philip II or Medina Sidonia, sits in a boat near her stern while monks disappear beneath the waves. Flanking her are the Ark Royal with the Elizabethan royal standard and another English ship, perhaps Drake's Revenge, painted with care and some accuracy of detail. Protestant England is laughing here as well as fighting.
“a death's head or skeleton in a jester's costume”
The real ship The Ark Royal was built by Chapman of Deptford for Sir Walter Raleigh as the Ark Raleigh and bought by the Crown in January 1587; Lord Howard's flagship against the Armada, she was renamed Anne Royal, rebuilt in 1608, lost in the Medway in 1636 and broken up in 1638. The four galleasses that reached the Channel all came from Naples.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: English School, 16th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
English fireships and the Spanish flagship Unnamed
Launch of Fireships against the Spanish Armada, 7 August 1588, c. 1590
Artist Aert Anthonisz (c. 1579 to 1620); Netherlandish school
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0263)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the night of 7 August 1588, with the Armada anchored off Calais, Drake sent in eight small ships packed with inflammables. Set alight among the Spanish fleet, they caused great confusion, and the Spanish cut their cables and never regained their anchorage. This contemporary Flemish interpretation shows the fireships running down on the Spanish fleet with the English fleet following, a sequence that did not actually happen, and a Spanish flagship in the left foreground fighting on both sides. Painted around 1590, it shows how quickly the night of the fireships became a story told in pictures across the North Sea.
“A contemporary Flemish interpretation of the launching of English fire-ships against the Spanish Armada.”
The vessels Fireships were expendable vessels packed with inflammables, set alight and sent among an enemy fleet; Drake's eight off Calais were small ships loosed against the anchored Armada.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
La Real and the Sultana Named ship
The Battle of Lepanto, c. 1603
Artist Andrea Vicentino (c. 1542 to 1617)
Where to see it Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace), Venice
Medium Oil on canvas
Andrea Vicentino, a painter from Vicenza who worked alongside Tintoretto in the Doge's Palace, painted Lepanto for the palace around the turn of the seventeenth century. The battle it commemorates turned on famous ships. Ali Pasha's Sultana drove into Don John of Austria's galley La Real as far as the fourth rowing bench, and only when Colonna came alongside were the Turks pushed back and their flagship boarded. Ahead of the Christian line, Venetian galleasses opened fire at close quarters on the foremost Turkish galleys and broke their array. It was the last major battle in the West fought almost entirely between rowing vessels.
The real ship La Real was Don John of Austria's galley and the Sultana that of Ali Pasha; the galleasses were large Venetian galleys with masts and sails in addition to oars, and substantial artillery.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Andrea Vicentino, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Spanish men-of-war and Barbary corsair galleys Unnamed
Spanish Men of War Engaging Barbary Corsairs, 1615
Artist Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom (1591 or 1592 to 1661)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0799)
Medium Oil on canvas
Through the seventeenth century North African corsairs threatened shipping in the Mediterranean, and sea fights with them became a popular subject for Dutch and Flemish painters. In this, the earliest known painting by Hendrick Vroom's son Cornelis, a Spanish ship engages corsair galleys marked by turbans and crescent moons. In the foreground a vessel has been hit and is sinking; her half-clad rowers, possibly slaves, struggle not to drown while men climb the rigging for safety and boats come to the rescue. The water is calm and the light warm and Italianate, so the horror is shown with perfect clarity. Vroom signed and dated it on the sinking ship's mast.
The vessels Barbary corsairs sailed from the North African coast in oared galleys and sailing ships, raiding merchant shipping; several European states sent punitive expeditions against them.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Aeolus and Roode Leeuw Named ship
Heemskerk's Defeat of the Spaniards at Gibraltar, 25 April 1607, c. 1619
Artist Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen (c. 1575 to 1633)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0265)
Medium Oil on canvas
At Gibraltar in 1607 some thirty Dutch ships under Jacob van Heemskerck destroyed a Spanish fleet in its own waters, the first major Dutch naval victory of the Eighty Years' War. Both admirals were killed. Van Wieringen, who probably studied under Hendrick Vroom, paints from a high viewpoint so that every detail can be read: Heemskerck's flagship the Aeolus, the Roode Leeuw, the Spanish Madre de Dios and San Augustin, sailors clinging to wreckage. This was his first independent painting of the battle and may have been commissioned by Heemskerck's family as a tribute to the dead admiral, yet it shows the action from the Spanish side, with the signature placed on a Spanish flag.
“some thirty Dutch vessels, under the command of Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk, defeated the Spanish fleet”
The real ship The Aeolus was Heemskerck's flagship at Gibraltar, where he was killed; the Roode Leeuw carried Vice Admiral Laurens Jacobsz Alteras. The Spanish fleet lost about 4,000 men.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The Holy League and Ottoman galley fleets Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, 1623
Artist Andries van Eertvelt (1590 to 1652)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts Ghent (MSK), S-88
Medium Oil paint
Van Eertvelt is regarded as the first Flemish marine painter, and his style owes as much to Pieter Bruegel the Elder as to the Dutch pioneer Hendrick Vroom. Half a century after Lepanto, in Antwerp, he painted the great Christian victory as a battle with the sea itself: tall ships labour under a storm-dark sky while in the foreground a broken galley is driven onto rocks and her men are flung into the surf among floating oars. Later in the decade he lived in Genoa with Cornelis de Wael, another painter of sea battles.
The vessels At Lepanto on 7 October 1571 the Holy League fleet under Don John of Austria defeated the Ottoman fleet in the last great galley action.
Image: Andries van Eertvelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Piet Hein's ship and the Spanish and Portuguese ships at Bahia Unnamed
Attack on San Salvador, c. 1624
Artist Andries van Eertvelt
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0268)
Medium Oil on panel
In 1624 a Dutch fleet sailed into the bay of San Salvador, a Portuguese city in Brazil. Eertvelt shows the entrance to the bay with Dutch and Spanish ships in action, Piet Hein's ship prominent on the right, forts being bombarded on the left and Spanish ships anchored under a steep city of church spires and rooftops. He adds four brightly coloured parakeets flying overhead, a painter's reminder that this was a war fought in the tropics. The composition probably derives from a 1624 etching by Claes Jansz Visscher, rearranged for drama.
The vessels The ships are those of the Dutch assault of 1624 on San Salvador in Portuguese Brazil, where Piet Hein personally led the attack on the sea fortress; the Dutch hold was brief, and a large Spanish and Portuguese fleet retook the city.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Andries van Eertvelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Haarlem (probably) and Spanish warships Named ship
An Engagement between the Spanish and the Dutch, c. 1630
Artist Cornelis Verbeeck
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0270)
Medium Oil on canvas
Verbeeck was born and died in Haarlem and is believed to have been a pupil of Hendrick Vroom, and paints the Eighty Years' War at sea as a cavalry charge on water. On a Dutch ship at the left a man in the stern blows a trumpet to sound the action while another brandishes a sword. To the right a Dutch flagship bearing the arms of Haarlem, perhaps the Haarlem herself, has trumpeters in her stern and men firing down onto the deck of her Spanish opponent. Wreckage and two flags in the foreground mark a sunken ship. It was once called the Battle of the Downs, but the painter had died before 1639.
“a man in the stern blows a trumpet to sound the action”
The real ship The ship bearing the arms of Haarlem on her stern was possibly named after the city; Dutch and Spanish warships fought repeatedly in the Channel and North Sea during the Eighty Years' War (1568 to 1648).
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Cornelis Verbeeck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The Anglo-Dutch fleet of Sir Edward Cecil in the Bay of Cádiz Unnamed
The Defence of Cádiz against the English (Defensa de Cádiz contra los ingleses), 1634
Artist Francisco de Zurbarán (1598 to 1664)
Where to see it Museo del Prado, Madrid (P006656)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in 1634 for the Hall of Realms of the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid, one of twelve battle pictures for the room, whose painters included Velázquez and Maíno, this canvas celebrates the repulse of Sir Edward Cecil's Anglo-Dutch attack on Cádiz in 1625. Zurbarán set the scene like a theatre: in front, the gouty governor Fernando Girón sits in black with his crutch and baton among his officers; behind, the bay spreads out with the attackers landing before the Puntal fort. The picture was long credited to Eugenio Cajés, until a record of payment to Zurbarán was published in 1945.
The vessels In 1625 an Anglo-Dutch fleet under Sir Edward Cecil attacked Cádiz and landed troops in the bay before the Puntal fort, where the Spanish defenders repelled them.
Sources Wikipedia (ES) · Wikidata
Image: Francisco de Zurbarán, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Dutch warship of Witte de With and Dunkirk privateers Unnamed
Witte de With's Action with Dunkirkers off Nieuwpoort, 1640, c. 1643
Artist Jacob Gerritsz Loeff
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0271)
Medium Oil on panel
Between 1625 and 1645 the Flanders fleet of Spain and its privateering auxiliaries, sailing from Dunkirk, dominated the North Sea. Loeff paints a single Dutch ship under her own flag and pendants attacked by five Dunkirk privateers flying the Burgundian ragged cross of the Spanish Netherlands. It probably records the 1640 fight in which Witte de With intercepted the Navarrese admiral Miguel de Horna and captured two Spanish vessels. The museum suggests it was commissioned by a merchant or shipowner whose property De With had saved, a painting of gratitude as much as of battle. Its companion piece probably shows the same encounter.
“The battle that ensued was long and bloody”
The vessels The Dunkirkers were the Flanders fleet of the Spanish Netherlands and its privateering auxiliaries, which dominated the North Sea between 1625 and 1645 and threatened Dutch trade.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Jacob Gerritsz Loeff, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles and Eendracht Named ship
The Battle of Lowestoft, 3 June 1665, Showing HMS 'Royal Charles' and the 'Eendracht', mid-17th century
Artist Hendrik van Minderhout (1632 to 1696)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0283)
Medium Oil on panel
Lowestoft was the first fleet action of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, with more than a hundred sail on each side. Minderhout paints the decisive duel from the Dutch point of view: the Royal Charles, with the Duke of York aboard and the royal crest carved on her stern, in close action with the Eendracht, her carved lion visible, just before the Dutch flagship blew up. Lieutenant Admiral van Wassenaer Obdam died with his ship. Probably painted shortly after the battle, the panel even gives the English flagship a Dutch stern with a square tuck and gallery, a small slip that tells you whose eyes were watching.
“Of a crew of over 400 only five survived.”
The real ship The Royal Charles was built by Peter Pett at Woolwich as the Naseby and renamed on 23 May 1660, when she carried Charles II home at the Restoration. The Eendracht, built at Rotterdam in 1653 and rated at 58 to 72 guns, was the principal Dutch flagship and blew up in action on 3 June 1665; of a crew of over 400 only five survived.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia · boijmans.nl
Image: Hendrik van Minderhout, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Leopard and Zon Named ship
The Battle of Leghorn, 4 March 1653
Artist Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman (c. 1623 to 1664)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0274)
Medium Oil on canvas
The First Anglo-Dutch War reached the Mediterranean at Leghorn, today Livorno. Captain Appleton, blockaded in port, sailed out too early and attacked before Badiley could join him. Nooms, called Zeeman, the Dutch word for sailor, after his rough early years at sea, shows the result: Appleton's Leopard fighting a losing battle between two Dutchmen, one of them the Zon, her sun emblem carved on the stern, with Leghorn in the background. Nooms signed the painting on the Zon's own flag. The Dutch won command of the Mediterranean that day, though their commodore Van Galen was mortally wounded.
The real ship The Leopard, Appleton's flagship, given 50 guns by the museum, was captured by the Dutch at Leghorn after 150 of her 200 men were killed or wounded. The Zon, 40 guns, commanded by Pieter van Zalingen in Van Galen's squadron, was subsequently sunk.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Resolution (ex-Prince Royal) and Brederode Named ship
The Battle of the Gabbard, 2 June 1653
Artist Heerman Witmont
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0276)
Medium Oil grisaille on oak panel (pen and brush in brown over graphite)
The Gabbard was fought off the Suffolk coast, Monck and Deane, joined on the second day by Blake, against Maarten Tromp. Witmont draws the flagships at the centre of it: the Resolution, 88 guns, the old Prince Royal renamed by the Commonwealth, against Tromp's Brederode, her carved stern dated 1645. This is pen painting, the technique Witmont pioneered with his friend Van de Velde the Elder: brown pigment laid with pen and brush over graphite on an off-white ground on oak, highly detailed. The signature floats on a spar in the lower right, among the wreckage.
The real ship The Resolution had been launched at Woolwich in 1610 as the Prince Royal, rebuilt in 1639 to 1641, renamed under the Commonwealth and renamed Royal Prince in 1660; she was burned by the Dutch in 1666. The Brederode, launched at Rotterdam in 1644, was Tromp's flagship until his death in 1653.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Heerman Witmont, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Brederode Named ship
The Battle of Scheveningen, 31 July 1653, c. 1654
Artist Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraten (1622 to 1666)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0278)
Medium Oil on canvas
Scheveningen ended the First Anglo-Dutch War and cost the Dutch their greatest admiral: Maarten Tromp was killed early in the fight by a sharpshooter in the rigging of an English ship. Beerstraten puts Tromp's Brederode at the heart of the canvas in furious action with English ships on both sides, a Dutch ship sinking in the foreground and Monck's Resolution fighting four Dutchmen beyond. Burning ships on the far right are probably the Andrew and the Triumph. Painted within a year or so of the battle, it is a flagship portrait made while the loss was still raw.
The real ship The Brederode was launched at Rotterdam in 1644 to a design by Jan Salomonsz van den Tempel and carried 49 to 59 guns. She fought at Dover, Dungeness, Portland, the Gabbard and Scheveningen, and at the Battle of the Sound on 8 November 1658 she was boarded and Witte de With was mortally wounded aboard her.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Andrew and Brederode Named ship
The Battle of Scheveningen, 10 August 1653, 1655
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0277)
Medium Oil on panel using pen and brush (grisaille)
Van de Velde the Elder watched this battle from a galliot, and he put himself into the picture: the seated figure in the left foreground, back to us, hat on, drawing block and pencil in hand. Around him he gathers several moments into one scene. The burning English Andrew is grappled by the Dutch fireship Fortune while her crew abandon ship, and beyond are Tromp's Brederode and Monck's Resolution. Tromp was killed early in the fight and the Dutch lost 15 ships, yet the artist presents it as a Dutch success. It is the rare battle picture signed, in effect, with the witness's own back.
“All this can be seen in the drawings made, as accurately as possible, in the heat of the battle.”
The real ship The Brederode was built at Rotterdam to a design by Jan Salomonsz van den Tempel and launched in 1644, carrying 49 to 59 guns. Tromp's flagship in the First Anglo-Dutch War, she was boarded and lost at the Battle of the Sound in 1658.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Santa Teresa Named ship
The Battle of the Downs, 1659
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1363)
Medium Pen painting (ink on canvas)
Twenty years after the event, the elder Van de Velde drew this pen painting in ink on canvas, his speciality, of the battle that made the Dutch navy's name. In 1639 a large Spanish fleet carrying troops and supplies to Flanders was intercepted in the Channel by Maarten Tromp with a much smaller force, and defeated when it took refuge in the Downs off the English coast. The Rijksmuseum singles out the capture of the Santa Teresa, the large Spanish warship burning on the left, as the emblem of the victory that established the Dutch fleet's formidable reputation.
The real ship The Santa Teresa was a large Spanish warship of the fleet sent to carry troops to Flanders in 1639; she was captured and is shown burning at the Battle of the Downs on 21 October 1639.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Eendracht Named ship
The Battle of the Sound, 8 November 1658, c. 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0280)
Medium Grisaille pen painting on canvas
In 1658 a Dutch fleet fought its way through the Sound to relieve Copenhagen from the Swedes, and Van de Velde the Elder was there to see it. He chose a low viewpoint so that the sky fills with sails, flags and pennants, outlined against clouds toned with grey washes, with Kronborg Castle on the Danish shore, where the Swedish king himself watched the battle. Wassenaer's Eendracht and the Swedish Carolus are among the ships, and in the foreground a Swedish ship sinks while her men stretch out their arms for rescue. He made eight known pen paintings of this one subject.
“arms outstretched beseeching”
The real ship The Eendracht was built at Rotterdam in 1653 and rated at 58 to 72 guns; at the Sound she carried Lieutenant Admiral van Wassenaer Obdam, who, paralysed by gout, directed the battle from an armchair on deck. She blew up at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665 with Obdam aboard.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia · boijmans.nl
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Dutch and English ships of the line Unnamed
An Action of the Four Days' Battle, 1 to 4 June 1666
Artist Lieve Pietersz Verschuier
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0288)
Medium Oil on panel
Royal Museums Greenwich calls the Four Days Battle the longest fleet action in naval history. Verschuier paints one episode as evening comes on, the sinking sun embedded behind the clouds turning the scene gold. An English ship under the red ensign, her sails full of shot holes and her fore topmast falling, fights a Dutch ship flying the triple prince flag of the Amsterdam Admiralty, while on the right a ship goes down and a small boat picks up her men. In the foreground a sailor reaches out with a boat hook to a man clinging to a sunken mast. Ferocity and a North Sea dusk share the same frame.
“the golden glow of the painting, with the sinking sun embedded behind the clouds”
The vessels The Four Days Battle of June 1666 set Albemarle's English fleet of 56 ships against De Ruyter's larger Dutch fleet in the southern North Sea.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Lieve Pietersz Verschuier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
De Zeven Provincien Named ship
Council of War aboard 'De Zeven Provincien', the Flagship of Michiel de Ruyter, 10 June 1666 (De krijgsraad aan boord van de 'De Zeven Provincien'), 1666 to 1693
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-4289)
Medium Ink on canvas (pen painting)
On the eve of the Four Days Battle De Ruyter called the commanders of his warships to his flagship, and Van de Velde the Elder recorded the gathering in one of his great pen paintings, 175 centimetres wide. The Zeven Provincien lies on the right, the white flag on her stern signalling the council, the flag and pennant at her main marking the admiral's ship, while sloops sail among the warships around her. To portray the battle that followed, the artist sailed for a time with De Ruyter's fleet. It is a picture of the quiet before a storm, the fleet assembled and waiting while its admirals decide.
The real ship De Zeven Provincien was built in 1664 to 1665 for the Admiralty of the Maze in Rotterdam by Salomon Jansz van den Tempel, with 80 guns. She was De Ruyter's flagship at the Four Days Battle, a command post during the raid on the Medway, and fought at Solebay, Schooneveld and the Texel; she was broken up in 1694 after severe damage at Barfleur and La Hogue.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Prince Named ship
The Four Days' Battle: the Burning of HMS Royal Prince, 3 June 1666
Artist Adriaen van Diest (1655 to 1704)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0290)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Royal Prince had served the English crown for more than half a century when she ran onto the Galloper Sand on the third day of the Four Days Battle. Surrounded by Dutch fireships, her crew panicked and Sir George Ayscue was forced to surrender to Tromp. De Ruyter, following standing orders, had her burned to prevent her recapture. Adriaen van Diest, a Hague-born painter who moved to London at seventeen, gives the end of this old great ship a canvas more than two metres wide, a funeral pyre on a shoal in the open sea.
The real ship Launched at Woolwich in 1610 as the Prince Royal, built by Phineas Pett, rebuilt in 1639 to 1641 and again in 1661 to 1663 as a 92-gun first-rate, renamed Resolution under the Commonwealth and Royal Prince in 1660. Burned by the Dutch on the Galloper Sand on 3 June 1666.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Adriaen van Diest, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles, Zeven Provincien and Royal Prince Named ship
The Four Days Fight, 1 to 4 June 1666
Artist Pieter Cornelisz van Soest (active 17th century)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0284)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Four Days Fight remains one of the longest naval battles in history, Albemarle with 56 ships against De Ruyter's larger fleet. Van Soest builds a panorama of it: two English two-deckers dying in the foreground, one on her beam ends with men clinging to the rigging, one burning with swimmers striking away. Beyond, Albemarle's Royal Charles engages De Ruyter's Zeven Provincien, while the Royal Prince fights Evertsen's Walcheren and Tromp's Hollandia shows her striped flags. For all the ships, two thirds of the canvas is sky, as if the battle were only weather passing over the North Sea.
The real ship The Royal Charles (ex-Naseby, built at Woolwich) was the English fleet flagship. The Zeven Provincien, built at Rotterdam in 1664 to 1665 with 80 guns, was De Ruyter's flagship through the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars and was broken up in 1694. The Royal Prince, launched at Woolwich in 1610 and rebuilt twice, was lost on the third day of this battle.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Pieter Cornelisz van Soest, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Dutch fleet at Chatham Unnamed
The Apotheosis of Cornelis de Witt, with the Dutch Raid on the Medway in the background, 1667 to 1700 (replica of a work of c. 1668)
Artist After Jan de Baen
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-4648)
Medium Oil on canvas
Cornelis de Witt sailed with the fleet that attacked Chatham as the representative of the States General, and Jan de Baen painted his apotheosis. He sits in fictitious dress among a cannon and a suit of armour, a horn of plenty spilling at his feet, an angel holding a victory wreath over his head and Fame sounding her trumpet, while the raid on the Medway is played out in the background. The ships are the proof of the glory. The larger original hung in the town hall of Dordrecht, where De Witt was burgomaster, and was destroyed in 1672, the year of his death; this replica preserves it.
The vessels The fleet in the background is De Ruyter's force that broke into the Medway in June 1667, burning English warships and capturing the Royal Charles.
Sources Rijksmuseum
Image: After Jan de Baen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles Named ship
The Arrival of the Royal Charles, 1667
Artist Jeronymus van Diest (II)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1389)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Rijksmuseum calls the Royal Charles the most powerful warship in the English fleet, and here she arrives as a trophy at the Dutch port of Hellevoetsluis. Her English flag is lowered to signify surrender. It is a portrait of a captured ship painted the same year she was taken, and it hangs in the same gallery as her ornately carved counter, which the Dutch preserved. Few paintings can be seen beside a real fragment of the vessel they show, and the pairing turns a naval humiliation into a lasting national keepsake.
“The Royal Charles was the most powerful warship in the English fleet.”
The real ship Built by Peter Pett at Woolwich as the Naseby and renamed Royal Charles at the Restoration, she was captured at Chatham on 12 June 1667, kept in drydock near Hellevoetsluis as a public attraction and auctioned for scrap in 1673. Her stern carving survives in the Rijksmuseum.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Dutch fleet in the Medway Unnamed
Burning of the English Fleet near Chatham, 19 to 24 June 1667, 1667 to 1678
Artist Willem Schellinks (1623 to 1678)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1393)
Medium Oil on canvas
Schellinks travelled through England and much of Europe between 1661 and 1665, and he used his drawings of England as the basis for his paintings of the raid on the Medway. The view opens like a map: Fort Sheerness below left in Dutch hands, the ring of English ships sunk to block the river with only their masts showing, and the Dutch fleet breaking through towards Chatham, with Rochester to the right and London far off in the distance. The painting shows how a navy's own defences became the setting of its humiliation, and how an artist's peacetime travel sketches became a victory picture.
The vessels The Dutch fleet under Michiel de Ruyter took the fort at Sheerness and sailed up the Medway to Chatham, England's principal naval base, in June 1667, burning English warships and capturing the Royal Charles.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia · Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where the original is kept. Photo: Whythealgarve, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles Named ship
Dutch Attack on the Medway, 9 to 14 June 1667
Artist Pieter van den Velde and Jan Peeters
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0293)
Medium Oil on panel
While the peace talks dragged on, England left its fleet laid up, partly as a gesture of peaceful intent, and the Dutch mobilised in secret. This panel celebrates what followed. In the right foreground the captured Royal Charles still wears her English jack and ensign, yet jubilant Dutchmen have just hoisted their own flag at her main and wave their hats. Around them English ships burn and a sunken ship shows only her ensign and mast tops, while a line of Dutch warships waits beyond. It is a painting of pure jubilation for a raid that won the Dutch much better terms at Breda.
The real ship The Royal Charles, given 86 guns by the museum, was built at Woolwich as the Naseby and renamed at the Restoration; she was captured at Chatham on 12 June 1667, taken to Hellevoetsluis and auctioned for scrap in 1673.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Pieter van den Velde and Jan Peeters, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles Named ship
Dutch Attack on the Medway, June 1667
Artist Pieter Cornelisz van Soest (active 17th century)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0295)
Medium Oil on canvas
Van Soest, a specialist in panoramic battles of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, paints the raid as the execution of Johan de Witt's bold plan. The Royal Charles appears just after her capture, while all through the middle ground English ships are set alight by fireships and the masts of scuttled ships stand up out of the river on the left. His foreground is quieter and harder: figures escaping from the ships and survivors struggling in the water. It is the Dutch triumph seen at the level of the men who paid for it.
The real ship The Royal Charles, built at Woolwich as the Naseby and renamed at the Restoration, was captured uncommissioned at Chatham on 12 June 1667 and taken to Hellevoetsluis, where she was auctioned for scrap in 1673.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Pieter Cornelisz van Soest, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles Named ship
Dutch Attack on the Medway: the 'Royal Charles' Carried into Dutch Waters, 12 June 1667
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0292)
Medium Oil on canvas
Her capture was a particular humiliation for the English. The Royal Charles had been the Naseby of the Commonwealth, renamed by Charles II when she brought him home at the Restoration, and in June 1667 the Dutch took her at Chatham. Bakhuizen shows her brought into Hellevoetsluis in triumph, under small sail at the centre, a Dutch States yacht flying a white flag with an anchor beside her and a man-of-war flying the Dutch colours. The royal coat of arms on her stern is painted with care, and fittingly: that carving is largely preserved today in the Rijksmuseum.
The real ship Built by Peter Pett at Woolwich as the Naseby, an 80-gun first-rate, she was renamed Royal Charles on 23 May 1660 and carried Charles II from Scheveningen to Dover. Captured uncommissioned at Chatham on 12 June 1667, she was kept at Hellevoetsluis as a public attraction and auctioned for scrap in 1673; her stern carving is in the Rijksmuseum.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
English warships at Chatham Unnamed
The Dutch Burning English Ships during the Dutch Raid on the Medway, 20 June 1667, 1667 to 1669
Artist Jan van Leyden
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1386)
Medium Oil on panel
For the English, the museum notes, the Dutch attack came as a complete surprise. Two ships were captured and six large warships burned, set alight by fireships sent blazing among them. Jan van Leyden paints that moment: crews leaping overboard from the burning English ships while, in the foreground, Dutch marines land on the shore. The picture is direct, closer to a news report than to a triumph, and it belongs to the Rijksmuseum, which also keeps the carved stern of the Royal Charles itself.
“For the English, the Dutch attack came as a complete surprise.”
The vessels Six large English warships were burned at Chatham in June 1667, set alight by Dutch fireships, and two ships were captured, among them the Royal Charles.
Sources Rijksmuseum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Zeven Provincien and Huis te Oosterwijk Named ship
Dutch Attack on Harwich, July 1667, 1669
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0296)
Medium Grisaille pen painting on canvas
A month after the Medway, De Ruyter turned on Harwich, and the attempt failed: the bombardment of Landguard Fort was ineffective and the troops had to embark again. Van de Velde the Elder, who had sailed officially with Dutch fleets since 1653, drew the fleet at anchor off Harwich before the landing, each ship identifiable by the carving on her stern: De Ruyter's Zeven Provincien, and the Amsterdam ship Huis te Oosterwijk with a country house and a lake painted on her taffrail. Then, in the foreground, three porpoises, which the museum notes were known in great numbers off that coast.
“a country house and lake or moat painted on her tafferel”
The real ship De Zeven Provincien, built at Rotterdam in 1664 to 1665 with 80 guns, was De Ruyter's flagship in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars and was broken up in 1694. The Huis te Oosterwijk was an Amsterdam ship bearing the arms of Amsterdam with lion supporters.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Hampshire and Spiegel Named ship
Beach and Van Ghent Destroy Six Barbary Ships near Cape Spartel, Morocco, 17 August 1670
Artist Style of Willem van de Velde
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0298)
Medium Oil on canvas
For once the English and Dutch were on the same side. In August 1670 Commodore Richard Beach's English squadron joined the Dutch admiral Van Ghent off Cape Spartel in Morocco to cut off six Algerine corsairs, which ran themselves ashore and were burned. Sir Thomas Allin's account counts the reward in people: 250 Christian captives released. Five English ships under the red ensign fill the foreground, the flagship Hampshire among the Portsmouth, Jersey, Foresight and Centurion, while Van Ghent's Spiegel lies at anchor to the right. A grisaille scroll in the corner repeats the whole scene in miniature, like a caption.
The real ship The Hampshire was Beach's flagship and the Spiegel Van Ghent's; the six Algerine men-of-war, driven ashore near Cape Spartel, were set on fire after the English boats had freed as many Christian captives as they could.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Style of Willem van de Velde, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Prince Named ship
The Capture of the Royal Prince (De verovering van het Engelse admiraalsschip de Royal Prince), c. 1670
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-438)
Medium Oil on canvas
For the Dutch, the taking of the English flagship on 13 June 1666, the third day of the Four Days Battle, was a great prize. The Royal Prince had run aground on a sandbank off the English coast, and Cornelis Tromp captured her and transferred her crew to his own ship, the Gouda, seen at the left. Van de Velde paints a moment of triumph that carries its own sadness: Tromp would have preferred to tow the prize back to the Netherlands, but De Ruyter ordered him to burn her where she lay.
The real ship Built by Phineas Pett at Woolwich and launched in 1610, twice rebuilt and carrying 92 guns from 1663, the Royal Prince grounded on the Galloper Sand on 3 June (13 June new style) 1666, surrendered to Cornelis Tromp and was burned on De Ruyter's orders.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Mathias and Carolus V Named ship
The Dutch Raid on the Medway, 1667, c. 1670
Artist Anonymous, Low Countries
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-307)
Medium Oil on panel
An unknown Dutch painter sets the raid in Gillingham Reach, downstream of Chatham and below Upnor Castle, where the English fleet lay moored above what proved an ineffectual boom. To left and right the guardships Mathias and Carolus V, both Dutch prizes taken in earlier wars, are grappled and fired by the Dutch fireships Pro Patria and Schiedam, while English frigates burn beyond and the Royal Oak lies half-scuttled. In the foreground Dutch mariners attack their fleeing opponents. The Rijksmuseum calls it a fanciful depiction, but its mood is true: a humiliation for the Royal Navy, seen through Dutch eyes.
The real ship The guardships Mathias and Carolus V had both been captured from the Dutch, in 1653 and 1665 respectively, and were set on fire by Dutch fireships during the raid of June 1667.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where the original is kept. Photo: Whythealgarve, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Prince Named ship
The 'Royal Prince' and other Vessels at the Four Days Battle, 1 to 4 June 1666, c. 1670
Artist Abraham Storck (1644 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0286)
Medium Oil on canvas
Storck folds several days of fighting into one furious frame. In the left foreground rises the stern of De Ruyter's Zeven Provincien, the Dutch lion and provincial arms carved on it and 'Anno 1665' on the rail, the year she was launched. On the right the great Royal Prince sits aground on the Galloper Sand, her Stuart arms still proud on the stern as smoke pours from both ships. Between them the Royal Charles has her mainmast shot through. In the foreground an English ship goes down and boats row in for survivors. The museum calls it a rare battle piece by a painter better known for yachts and ceremonies.
“tempestuous and tranquil seascapes”
The real ship The Prince Royal was built by Phineas Pett at Woolwich and launched in 1610, rebuilt in 1639 to 1641 and again in 1661 to 1663 as a 92-gun first-rate, renamed Resolution under the Commonwealth and Royal Prince at the Restoration. Aground on the Galloper Sand on 3 June 1666, she surrendered to Tromp and De Ruyter ordered her burned.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The fleets of Octavian and of Antony and Cleopatra Unnamed
The Battle of Actium, 2 September 31 BC, 1672
Artist Laureys a Castro (1644 to c. 1700)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0251)
Medium Oil on canvas
Actium decided the Roman world: Octavian's fleet under Agrippa against Mark Antony and Cleopatra, whose squadron withdrew to the open sea, and the victory marked Rome's turn from republic to empire. Laureys a Castro, an Antwerp painter then working in England, made this dramatic Baroque interpretation in 1672, his earliest known dated work. His galleys are squat like Dutch fluyts rather than long and slender, crewed by soldiers in plumed helmets. Cleopatra, in seventeenth-century dress, raises her arms in despair from an ornate barge, and beside her stands a naked Fortune on a globe with her billowing sail.
The vessels At Actium on 2 September 31 BC Octavian's fleet of about 400 galleys, largely smaller Liburnian vessels, defeated the heavier quinqueremes and quadriremes of Antony; the victory made Octavian master of the Roman world.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Laureys a Castro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal James Named ship
The Burning of the Royal James at the Battle of Solebay, 28 May 1672
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0302)
Medium Oil on canvas
Solebay opened the Third Anglo-Dutch War, when De Ruyter fell on the allied fleet at anchor in Southwold Bay. The Royal James, flagship of the Earl of Sandwich, fought Van Ghent's squadron and sank two fireships before a third, the Vrede, grappled her and set her ablaze. Van de Velde lets the flagship dominate the right of the canvas as men leap overboard or cling to the rigging, while De Ruyter's Zeven Provincien fights the Royal Sovereign beyond. Sandwich tried to escape by boat, but it was swamped and he drowned. The picture belongs to the years when father and son had just come to England, where they founded the English school of marine painting.
The real ship Launched at Portsmouth Dockyard on 31 March 1671 to a design by Anthony Deane, the Royal James carried about 100 guns. She was destroyed by fire from Dutch fireships at Solebay on 28 May (7 June new style) 1672, barely a year old.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Tiger Named ship
HMS Tiger Attacked by Eight Dutch Privateers, 26 August 1672
Artist Daniel Schellinks
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0304)
Medium Oil on canvas
Not every fight of the Anglo-Dutch wars was a fleet battle. After Solebay, Captain Thomas Harman in the Tiger was escorting colliers along the east coast to the Thames when eight Dutch privateers fell on him, and he fought them off. Daniel Schellinks paints an action of the war from above: a ship on the far right, perhaps the Tiger, encircled by Dutch vessels and firing back, lines of English and Dutch ships in the middle distance and probably the Dutch coast beyond. The painting's unusual proportions suggest it was cut down at some point, a small wound in the history of a picture about a small, stubborn victory.
The real ship The Tiger, commanded by Captain Thomas Harman, was an English warship on convoy duty protecting coal merchant ships on the east coast in 1672.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Daniel Schellinks, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Gouden Leeuw and Royal Prince Named ship
Encounter during the Battle of Kijkduin (Nachtelijk gevecht tussen Cornelis Tromp op de 'Gouden Leeuw' en Sir Edward Spragg op de 'Royal Prince'), c. 1675
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-2393)
Medium Oil on canvas
Kijkduin is the Dutch name for the Texel, and this is its most personal duel: Cornelis Tromp in the Gouden Leeuw against Sir Edward Spragge in the Royal Prince, old enemies, Spragge having publicly sworn to kill or capture Tromp. The painting is traditionally called the Nocturnal Battle, yet the fight of 21 August 1673 took place in daylight; it only looks like night because the ships are half-hidden in smoke and gunpowder fumes. Each admiral had to shift his flag to fresh ships three times, and on the third Spragge drowned when his boat sank. It is a Dutch episode painted by a Dutchman who had settled in England the year before the battle.
The real ship The Gouden Leeuw, built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 with 80 to 82 guns, was Tromp's flagship and was broken up in 1686. The Royal Prince was Spragge's 100-gun flagship, dismasted in this action.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Drawing
Mary Rose Named ship
The 'Mary Rose' Action, 8 to 18 December 1669, c. 1675
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH3905)
Medium Graphite and grey wash
In December 1669 Captain John Kempthorne in the Mary Rose, on convoy duty in the Mediterranean, was attacked by seven Algerine corsairs; with the help of only the ketch Roe he drove them off and the whole convoy was saved. Hollar etched the action for Ogilby's Africa in 1670. Van de Velde the Younger based this well-finished drawing on that print, adding more smoke and making the ships more accurate, and drew the Mary Rose broadside at the centre with merchantmen and corsairs around her, each keyed by a letter. He made another version with a low horizon, and his final painting is now in the Royal Collection.
“Captain John Kempthorne in the ‘Mary Rose’ was attacked by seven Algerine corsairs”
The real ship The Mary Rose of Kempthorne's action was an English warship of the Restoration navy escorting a merchant convoy in the Mediterranean in 1669; she beat off seven Algerine corsairs with the help of the ketch Roe.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Prince Named ship
The Battle of the Texel, 11 to 21 August 1673, c. 1680
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0314)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Texel was the last battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War and the allies' final attempt to destroy the Dutch fleet and leave the coast free for an invasion of Holland. Van de Velde centres the canvas on Sir Edward Spragge's Royal Prince, main and mizzen masts gone, still firing her starboard guns while Tromp's flagship fires into her from the left foreground and a Dutch fireship burns ahead. Around them float a barrel, wreckage, clinging men and rescue boats. Over it all the artist lays a golden sunset, smoke rising into parting clouds, so that the violence ends in something close to peace. He signed it on the floating barrel.
The real ship The Royal Prince was a 100-gun first-rate and flagship of Spragge at the Texel, where Tromp attacked her repeatedly with gunfire and fireships and she lost her main and mizzen masts. Tromp's flagship at the start of the battle, the Gouden Leeuw, was built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 and broken up in 1686.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Gouden Leeuw and Royal Prince Named ship
The Goulden Leeuw Engaging Royal Prince at the Battle of the Texel, 11 August 1673, late 17th century
Artist Abraham Storck (1644 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0307)
Medium Oil on canvas
Storck gives the Texel its personal duel: Cornelis Tromp, commanding the Dutch rear squadron, against Sir Edward Spragge, admiral of the allied rear. Tromp's Gouden Leeuw fills the centre nearly stern on, flying his double prince flag, while the port bow of the Royal Prince pushes out through the gun smoke, her mizzen still standing early in the action. The Olifant fights on the far left, the Hollandia beyond, and a fireship burns itself out in the foreground. Storck was a painter of people as much as rigging, and the water here is full of them: men in the sea and clinging to a sunken mast while boats work to pull them out.
The real ship The Gouden Leeuw was built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666, carried 80 to 82 guns, served as Tromp's flagship in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and was broken up in 1686. The Royal Prince, 100 guns, was Spragge's flagship at the Texel.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The English, French and Dutch fleets Unnamed
The First Battle of Schooneveld, 28 May 1673, 1684
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0305)
Medium Grisaille (pen and brush on canvas)
At Schooneveld, a narrow basin at the mouth of the Schelde, De Ruyter with 52 ships faced 79 English ships and the French under Prince Rupert and the Comte d'Estrees. Van de Velde the Elder watched from an English ketch, which he marked in the picture as his own boat: it was the first battle he observed and recorded from the English side. He drew it eleven years later from drawings made at the time, from a high viewpoint so that the action at about four in the afternoon can be read ship by ship, and signed it with his age: 'W V Velde f.1684 oudt. 73 Jaren'. An old eyewitness, still drawing the fleets he had followed.
“the first battle that he observed and recorded from the English side”
The vessels At the First Battle of Schooneveld on 28 May 1673 the Dutch fleet under De Ruyter in the Zeven Provincien fought the Anglo-French fleet under Prince Rupert in the Royal Charles and the Comte d'Estrees in La Reine; the battle lasted nine hours and no English ship was lost.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Gouden Leeuw and Royal Prince Named ship
The Battle of the Texel, 11 August 1673, 1685
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0346)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bakhuizen, a German calligrapher turned Amsterdam marine painter, stages the Texel twelve years after the event through its small boats. In the foreground men fight hand to hand from open boats with oars, daggers and cutlasses, exhausted sailors are hauled from the water and hats float among the debris. Behind them an English ship has lost her mast and a Dutch ship, thought to be Tromp's Gouden Leeuw, fights off the English. Bakhuizen painted his name on the side of one boat and the date on its stern, as if signing the human scale of the battle rather than its admirals.
The real ship The Gouden Leeuw, built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 with 80 to 82 guns, was Tromp's first flagship at the Texel and was broken up in 1686. The dismasted English ship may be Spragge's Royal Prince of 100 guns or Chicheley's Charles of 96 guns.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Tapestry
Royal James Named ship
The Solebay Tapestries: The Fleets Drawn up for Battle and The Burning of the Royal James, after 1685
Artist Designed by Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693), woven by Thomas Poyntz at Mortlake
Where to see it Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam
Medium Tapestry
Van de Velde the Elder watched Solebay from a Dutch sailing boat. After he settled in England, Charles II around 1672 and James II in 1685 commissioned tapestries of the battle, and he adapted his drawings to show it from the English side. Het Scheepvaartmuseum's purchase of two, the largest acquisition in its history, brought home the fleets drawn up for battle and the burning of the Royal James later in the day, the English flagship destroyed by a Dutch fireship. Of the twelve made, they are the only examples on display outside the United Kingdom. A Solebay tapestry of the burning Royal James also hangs in the Queen's House at Greenwich.
“The Stuarts saw the Battle of Solebay as their own Armada”
The real ship The Royal James, a first-rate of about 100 guns, was launched at Portsmouth in 1671 and burned by Dutch fireships at Solebay on 28 May (7 June new style) 1672; the Earl of Sandwich drowned escaping her.
Sources hetscheepvaartmuseum.com · Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam, where the original is kept. Photo: Rudolphous, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Gouden Leeuw Named ship
The 'Gouden Leeuw' at the Battle of the Texel, 21 August 1673, 1687
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0315)
Medium Oil on canvas
This is the largest of Van de Velde's many paintings of the Texel and, for Royal Museums Greenwich, one of his greatest achievements. Cornelis Tromp's Gouden Leeuw dominates the centre, the lion on her stern, firing to port and starboard at once, the double prince striped flag at her main. Around her the Charles loses her mizzen topmast, the Royal Prince is battered and an English ship sinks with boats closing on her survivors. The ship's prominence points to a Dutch commission, and the picture reads as a portrait of a flagship celebrated as a symbol of national pride.
“Battle at Sea. Very fine”
The real ship The Gouden Leeuw was built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 and carried 80 to 82 guns. She was Tromp's flagship at the Texel, became unmanageable so that he shifted his flag to the Comeetstar, and was broken up in 1686.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Swiftsure, Convertine and Loyal George as Dutch prizes Named ship
Dutch Ships Returning with their Prizes to Goeree after the Four Days Battle, 4 June 1666, late 17th or early 18th century
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707), studio or follower
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0289)
Medium Oil on canvas
After the battle comes the procession. Dutch warships bring captured English ships into the Haringvliet, the estuary of the Maas between Goeree and Hellevoetsluis, the Wassenaer firing a salute on the left. The prizes are recognisable by their red ensigns flown beneath Dutch colours: the Convertine, the Swiftsure, the Loyal George. The Hollandia, Tromp's flagship until a collision on the first day dismasted her, comes home too. It is a quiet estuary scene, yet every flag in it tells of defeat and victory, and the museum sees it as a variant of the last of four paintings of the battle at Knowsley Hall.
The real ship The Swiftsure, 64 guns, under Sir William Berkeley, fell into Dutch hands on the second day of the Four Days Battle; the Loyal George was taken on the first day and the Convertine was captured by the Wassenaer.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Soleil Royal Named ship
The Battle of La Hogue, 1778
Artist Benjamin West (1738 to 1820)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1692 an English and Dutch fleet won a decisive victory off the coast of Normandy, thwarting an expected French invasion of England. West, the Pennsylvania-born painter who had made his name in London with The Death of General Wolfe, condensed the complex events into one dramatic composition with poetic licence. Admiral George Rooke stands upright in a boat on the left, sword raised, and in the background the great French flagship Soleil Royal is being run aground. Painted in 1778, when Britain and France were again at war, it turned an old victory into a call to arms.
The real ship The Soleil Royal was built at Brest by Laurent Hubac and launched in 1669; Tourville's flagship, she carried 104 guns at Barfleur in 1692. Too damaged to reach Brest, she was beached at Cherbourg, and on the night of 2 to 3 June a fireship set her stern alight and the fire reached her powder rooms.
Sources Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
San Martin and Ark Royal Named ship
Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 8 August 1588, 1796
Artist Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740 to 1812)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0264)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two centuries after the event, Loutherbourg painted Gravelines like the stage designer he was. In 1779 he had staged the Armada battle as a spectacular scene at Drury Lane, and here light and colour do the same work. English sailors fight their way into the beak of a Spanish ship silhouetted against flame and smoke; Medina Sidonia's San Martin flies the papal and Spanish standards; men in full armour fight beside others armed only with oars; a monk stands arms wide in a doomed pinnace. From the right comes the Ark Royal, bearing Elizabeth's arms.
“in 1779 he designed a staging of the Armada battle as a spectacular scene”
The real ship The San Martin was the Portuguese galleon Sao Martinho, completed by 1580 with 48 heavy guns and chosen as the Duke of Medina Sidonia's flagship; badly damaged at Gravelines, she led the Armada home and was towed into Santander. The Ark Royal was Lord Howard's flagship.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Philip James de Loutherbourg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Marie la Cordelière and the Regent Named ship
The Fight of the Cordelière against the English Fleet (Combat soutenu par Hervé de Portzmoguer contre une flotte anglaise), 1838
Artist Pierre-Julien Gilbert (1783 to 1860)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest (876.2.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Off Brest on 10 August 1512 the English fleet surprised a Franco-Breton fleet at anchor. By accident some three hundred guests, some of them women, were visiting the Breton flagship Marie la Cordelière, and her captain Hervé de Portzmoguer had no time to put them ashore. She covered the retreat of the rest, grappled the English Regent and her men swarmed aboard, until the Cordelière suddenly exploded; the flames spread and both ships blew up and sank. Gilbert paints the two great ships locked together in fire and smoke, small boats in the foreground and a tower on the headland beyond.
The real ship Marie la Cordelière, of about 1,000 tons, and the English Regent, of 600 tons, were each navy's largest and most powerful ship. Both were destroyed on 10 August 1512 near Brest; only 20 of the Cordelière's 1,250 men and 60 of the Regent's 460 were saved.
Image: Pierre-Julien Gilbert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
A war galley at Lepanto Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, 1848
Artist Ernest Slingeneyer (1820 to 1894)
Where to see it Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
Medium Oil on canvas
After the success of his Sinking of the Vengeur, the young Slingeneyer received a large history commission from the Belgian government and chose Lepanto, the victory of 7 October 1571 in the Gulf of Patras. He set the fight on the stern of a galley, a crescent-topped lantern above the rail, armoured Christian commanders standing firm at the centre while the struggle surges around them. When the canvas was finally shown in 1848 it fell short of expectations: the public was tiring of the history painting of the Antwerp Academy, and Brussels painters were winning favour with a less theatrical Romanticism. It is a picture of a battle and also of the end of a taste.
The vessels At Lepanto the fleet of the Holy League, led by the Venetian Republic and the Spanish Empire, inflicted a major defeat on the Ottoman fleet in the Gulf of Patras.
Image: Ernest Slingeneyer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Greek and Persian fleets at Salamis Unnamed
The Battle of Salamis (Die Seeschlacht bei Salamis), late career, before 1874
Artist Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1805 to 1874)
Where to see it Maximilianeum, Munich
Medium Oil on canvas
In 480 BC the Greek fleet under Themistocles defeated the Persian navy in the narrow straits of Salamis, while Xerxes watched from a throne set up on the slopes of Mount Aigaleo. Kaulbach, among his late works, painted the sea fight on a vast canvas more than thirty feet long for the Maximilianeum in Munich, a composition of his usual imagination and facility. A battle of hundreds of ramming ships crammed into a strait suits a canvas on that scale. It is the nineteenth century's grand vision of the sea fight that turned back the Persian invasion.
The vessels Herodotus gives 378 triremes for the allied Greek fleet at Salamis, some contingents including penteconters, against a Persian fleet he numbered at 1,207 triremes.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Scottish mercenary transports in Isfjorden, 1612 Unnamed
The Landing of Sinclair in Romsdal (Sinclairs landing i Romsdal), 1876
Artist Adolph Tidemand (1814 to 1876) and Morten Müller (1828 to 1911)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.00796)
Medium Oil on canvas
In August 1612, during the Kalmar War, two ships carrying Scottish mercenaries for the Swedish army sailed from Dundee and Caithness, met in Orkney and landed their men in Isfjorden in Romsdal. The Scots marched inland and were ambushed at Kringen, and Captain George Sinclair's name passed into ballad and legend. Tidemand and Morten Müller paint the landing itself: boats run onto the stony shore and armed men, women and baggage come ashore, while the sailing ships ride at anchor out in the misty fjord beneath the mountains. The ships are small, but they carry the whole tragedy.
The vessels The two transports sailed from Dundee and Caithness in early August 1612, met in Orkney and landed the force in Isfjorden on 20 August; the soldiers then marched inland and were defeated at Kringen.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikipedia
Image: Adolph Tidemand, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Don John of Austria's galley Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto (La Batalla de Lepanto), 1887
Artist Juan Luna (1857 to 1899)
Where to see it Palacio del Senado, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
The Filipino painter Juan Luna, famous for his Spoliarium, was commissioned by the Spanish Senate, through the influence of Alfonso XII, to paint Lepanto as a companion to Pradilla's Surrender of Granada. He shows Don John of Austria in battle at the bow of his ship. The widowed Queen Regent Maria Christina unveiled it in the Senate Hall in November 1887, and the next year it won a gold medal at the Barcelona exhibition. A painter from the Philippines, then under Spanish rule, gave Madrid one of its grandest images of the victory.
The vessels Don John of Austria, half-brother of Philip II, commanded the Holy League fleet from his galley La Real at Lepanto on 7 October 1571.
Sources Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The galley fleets at Lepanto Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto and World Map (Repanto sentōzu, sekai chizu byōbu), six-fold screens, Azuchi-Momoyama period
Artist Unknown Japanese painter
Where to see it Kosetsu Museum of Art, Kobe (Important Cultural Property)
Medium Colour on paper, six-fold screens
The most unexpected Lepanto of all is in Japan. Six-fold screens in colour on paper set the Battle of Lepanto beside a map of the world, and the Kosetsu Museum, founded on the collection of Murayama Ryōhei, founder of the Asahi Shimbun, counts them among its treasures. On the battle screen the fighting has come ashore, cavalry and even war elephants clashing in the foreground, while behind them tall ships under red cross flags and long galleys cross a patterned blue sea beneath golden clouds. A Mediterranean battle, fought on the other side of the world, becomes a painted spectacle for a Japanese room.
The vessels The screens take their title from the battle of 7 October 1571, when the Holy League fleet defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto; the ships shown are three-masted sailing ships and oared galleys.
Sources Wikipedia (JA) · Wikimedia Commons
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