Repro ID: PX6861
Title: Sixth rate saluting in a calm, by Willem Van de Velde, the Elder.
Description: A print by Van de Velde the Elder depicting a sixth-rate vessel, a small warship of no more than 20 guns. Van de Velde the Elder was essentially a draughtsman rather than a painter. During the 1640s he worked independently, making drawings of shipping. From the outbreak of the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1652 he worked for the Dutch government, who gave him the use of a small sailing craft from which he was able to make drawings from life, sometimes of battles. He was one of the pioneers of pen-painting (penschilderij). This process involved drawing detailed pictures with a pen and black pigment on a prepared white wooden panel, or occasionally canvas. His pen paintings, austere in their dark wood frames, are among the masterpieces of the Golden Age of Dutch painting.
Creator: Willem Van de Velde, the Elder [artist]; Kirkall, Edward [engraver]
Date: 17th Century
Credit line: National Maritime Museum, London
