Michiel de Ruyter as Lieutenant-Admiral

In June 1666 the Dutch and English fleets fought for four days in the North Sea, one of the longest sea battles of the age. Michiel de Ruyter, commanding from his flagship De Zeven Provinciën, came out of it the victor, and it was decided that his portrait should hang in the council rooms of every Dutch Admiralty. Bol's canvas, dated 1667, is one of those portraits, and a very similar version is in the Mauritshuis in The Hague. De Ruyter stands before a drawn-back curtain, leaning on a globe with a commander's baton in his hand, beside a map of Zeeland and Flanders. The ship behind the balustrade on the right is De Zeven Provinciën herself. The chain on his chest is the French Order of Saint Michael, which he received from the king of France, at that time allied with the Dutch against England.