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    • Kid-Friendly Events

    Featured exhibition:

    The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art

    Now on view

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    6th and Constitution Ave NW 
    Washington, DC 20565

    Ice Rink at the Sculpture Garden

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    Learn more

  • Exhibitions & Events

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    • Kid-Friendly Events

    Featured exhibition:

    The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art

    Now on view

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    3. Dorothea Villard Hammond
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    Dorothea Villard Hammond

    American, 1907 - 1994

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    Two large wooden warships firing on each other on a choppy sea almost fill the width of this long horizontal painting. The water closest to us is ocean blue and becomes tan with crests of parchment white in the distance. The tall sides of the warships are pierced with rows of black cannons poking through portholes. Each ship has three tall masts with flax-colored sails billowing in the wind. Tiny men dressed in gold, red, and blue line the decks firing rifles, climbing rigging, or watching the action. The ship to our left is angled toward us, the long arm of the bowsprit on its bow extending to our left. A pink flag bearing a gold and blue crest flies from its tallest mast. A green flag flies from its rear mast and a smaller gold one from the prow. Bright flashes of yellow and rose-pink erupt from two of its cannons, and the stern is wrapped in tawny-brown and light blue smoke. Close to that warship, we look onto the long side of the second warship, to our right. A flag with bands of red, white, and blue flies from its tallest mast and a smaller one with orange and gold stripes flutters from its rear mast. A third red flag flies from the stern. Armored men stand in its prow, firing rifles at a sinking ship directly in front of us. This smaller ship is almost completely submerged with just part of its sail and keel above the choppy surface of the water. Tiny people jump in the water or remain in place while shrapnel from its blasted wooden mast flies out in every direction. One man kneels on the sinking deck with his hands together, facing the attacking crew. In the distance to the left of the left-hand warship, two smaller ships also seem locked in battle. The larger of that distant pair chases the smaller, whose masts collapse with smoke rising from its deck. A sixth ship, tiny in scale, sails near the horizon near the right edge of the composition. Camel-brown clouds floating against a parchment-colored sky in the top two-thirds of the painting. The artist signed the painting as if his name were written on the flag with the red, white, and blue bands: “CORNELIS VB,” with the V and B joined to create a monogram.
    Cornelis Verbeeck, A Naval Encounter between Dutch and Spanish Warships, c. 1618/1620, oil on panel, Gift of Dorothea V. Hammond, 1995.21.1-2

    A Naval Encounter between Dutch and Spanish Warships

    A Naval Encounter between Dutch and Spanish Warships

    Cornelis Verbeeck · c. 1618/1620 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1995.21.1-2

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