A Naval Encounter between Dutch and Spanish Warships

c. 1618/1620

Cornelis Verbeeck

Painter, Dutch, 1590/1591 - 1637

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.

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In 1995 two marine paintings, Dutch Warship Attacking a Spanish Galley and Spanish Galleon Firing Its Cannons, were bequeathed to the National Gallery of Art. Technical examinations determined that the panels originally had formed a single painting that was subsequently cut in half to form two separate works. Dendrochronological analysis revealed that the two horizontally joined oak panel boards from each segment came from the same trees. This technical information, coupled with compositional evidence, such as corresponding cloud and wave patterns on the two segments, demonstrated that the two panels had once formed a continuous larger composition with the Spanish Galleon Firing Its Cannons panel on the left and the Dutch Warship Attacking a Spanish Galley panel on the right. Fortunately, the two panels had remained together throughout their history, and after they were conserved in 2009–2010, they were brought together to reestablish the original appearance of Verbeeck’s work.

This reconstructed painting, now titled A Naval Encounter between Dutch and Spanish Warships, vividly depicts an intense naval engagement, characteristic of Dutch battles against Spain during the long Dutch Revolt. At right a Dutch warship under full sail has already destroyed a small Spanish galley that is sinking in the stormy sea. The Dutch ship is alive with triumphant activity, from the commander and trumpeter standing on the poop deck beneath the red flag to the sailors scurrying up the rigging and the soldiers reloading their muskets. At left a Spanish galleon is firing its portside cannons toward the large Dutch warship while trying to hit another Dutch ship with its starboard cannons. The smaller Dutch vessel, in the left background, has already reduced a Spanish galley to a burning wreck. Verbeeck’s painting, which the artist signed Cornelis VB on the red, white, and blue Dutch flag atop the main mast, does not appear to represent an actual battle scene but seems to be a nautical metaphor celebrating the victory of the Dutch people over their enemy.

On View

NGA, West Building, G-013-A

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Dorothea V. Hammond

  • Dimensions

    overall (sight size): 47.63 x 141.61 cm (18 3/4 x 55 3/4 in.)
    framed: 66.68 x 159.39 cm (26 1/4 x 62 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1995.21.1-2

More About this Artwork

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: A Naval Encounter between Dutch and Spanish Warships, c. 1618/1620

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Henry Villard [1835-1900], New York, by the 1880s; by descent to his granddaughter, Dorothea Villard Hammond [1907-1994], Washington, D.C.; bequest 1995 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2018

  • Water, Wind, and Waves: Marine Paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2018, unnumbered brochure.

Bibliography

2007

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr., and Michael Swicklik. "Behind the Veil: Restoration of a Dutch Marine Painting Offers a New Look at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and History." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 37 (Fall 2007): 2-13, figs. 1, 11, 12.

2020

  • Kattenburg, Rob, et al. Cornelis Isaacz. Verbeeck, The discovery of a masterpiece: The Blockade of the Privateers' Nest at Dunkirk with the 'Vlieghende Groene Draeck', left in the foreground. Bergen, 2020: 7, fig. 6.

Inscriptions

on the Dutch flag: Cornelis VB

Wikidata ID

Q20176969

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