An Estuary with Fishing Boats and Two Frigates

Two tall frigates stand in the middle of this estuary with their sails up, and one of them is firing a salute. Van Goyen painted the gunsmoke as a few light swirls of white against the grey. The warships are the grand note, yet he keeps them at a distance and puts the fishing boats closest to us, in deep shadow, almost in silhouette.

Big round baskets wait in those boats for a catch, and in the largest one two nets stand upright, so thin that they read like transparent flags. A windmill rises on the far shore. The place is probably not a real one. The National Gallery thinks the scene was pieced together from small motifs in van Goyen's many drawings, and dates it to around 1650 to 1656, the last years of his life. Sir John Heathcoat Amory left the panel to the Gallery with a life interest to his widow, and Lady Amory handed it over in 1973.