The Cannon Shot

By the time this was painted around 1680, Willem van de Velde the Younger had been living in London for several years. He and his father had left the Dutch Republic in 1673 and taken salaries from Charles II of England, making drawings of sea-fights for the very navy their own countrymen had lately fought. Yet there is no battle here. A Dutch man-of-war lies almost still in a light haze, sails loosed, firing one cannon as a salute while two small boats drift alongside. In weather this calm a single gun was a courtesy, a greeting fired between ships rather than a threat.