The Explosion of the Spanish Flagship during the Battle of Gibraltar, 25 April 1607

On 25 April 1607 a fleet under Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck attacked the Spanish ships anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar. It was the first time the Dutch had taken their sea war with Spain so far from home. Heemskerck was killed early in the fight, yet his fleet won, and a Spanish flagship blew up. This canvas shows the explosion, a smaller Dutch warship pressed against the burning hull, men and debris flung into the sky, sailors scrambling into boats. The Rijksmuseum thinks it was probably painted around 1621 as a trial piece for a much larger Battle of Gibraltar, commissioned by the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1622. When the museum bought it in 1905 it was sold as the work of Hendrick Vroom, the best-known marine painter of the day. It is now given to Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen of Haarlem.