The Naval Battle against the Spanish near Dunkirk, 18 February 1639

In February 1639 the Dutch admiral Maarten Tromp was holding a Spanish fleet inside Dunkirk, the Flemish port that was home to privateers preying on Dutch shipping, with a blockade of 12 ships. On 18 February it came to a fight off the harbour, and here the Dutch warships are turned with their bows toward the enemy, so we see most of them from behind. Each ship's counter, its carved stern, was different, and Willem van de Velde drew them with such care that individual vessels can be identified from them. He made the picture 20 years after the battle, in 1659, entirely with a pen, in ink on a canvas primed pale, working the way an engraver works a plate. It is almost two metres wide and signed and dated at the lower right, W. v. Velde f. 1659.