Willem van de Velde the Younger Leiden 1633 - 1707 London

With American Art Galleries, New York, 1916;
Purchased from the above in 1916 by H. Farquharson Kerr and A.E. Clegg of the Kerr Steamship Line, New York;
Private Collection, New York;
Dr. Paul Flicker, New York,  by 1979, and by whom donated to the Museum in 1981.

Robinson (see Literature) describes this picture as `painted substantially by the Younger' and dates it to around 1675. This would place the painting very early in Van de Velde's stay in England, following his arrival with his father at the invitation of Charles II in 1672-3. He suggests that the painting may be related to a group of drawings by Willem van de Velde showing yachts off the Isle of  Wight in heavy weather, which record a stormy voyage made by Charles II to Portsmouth in 1675 to attend the launch of the Royal James. The yacht in the present work, however, has not yet been securely identified as one of those present. Both the yacht and storm are, however, almost certainly based upon an actual event.  After settling in London, Van de Velde increasingly tended to paint portraits of particular ships such as royal yachts and men-of-war, while storm and shipwreck subjects begin to displace the calms of the 1660s.

This painting is, as Robinson observes, the prime original of a composition that is known in several versions with differing degrees of participation by the Van de Velde workshop. The assured and remarkably fluent brushwork in this canvas, coupled with the characteristically close attention to detail, mark this out as the only entirely autograph work in the group. The other versions are those in the Morgan collection, New York,  described by Robinson as "painted partly by the Younger...circa 1690"; a signed variant extended to include a rocky coast on the left hand side and painted with substantial studio assistance, formerly in the collection of the Earl of Chichester and sold in these Rooms, 12 December 2002, lot 165; and a fourth version, reputedly signed by Peter Monamy and perhaps painted in the Van de Velde studio, now in an English private collection (Robinson, op. cit., pp. 1041-2, nos. 246 (2-4)).