Hendrik Jacobsz. Dubbels Amsterdam bapt 1621 - 1707

The attribution to Hendrickz. Jacob Dubbels was first proposed by H. Gerson and confirmed by Ulrike Middendorf, who dates this painting after 1670 (on the apparent basis of an old photograph; see Literature).   This is one of several re-workings by Dubbels of a compositon that he probably first explored in circa 1655-8 in an unsigned (it bears a false Van de Cappelle signature) and undated picture in Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen (see Middendorf, op. cit., p. 117, no. 42*, reproduced facing page). The same elements of the composition are all present here, apart from the Man O' War in the centre middleground of the Rotterdam picture, but they are all altered, and the mood is different, so that in the present work the lit sail of the nearest small vessel is set against the grey lowering cloud.