- 16
* Willem van de Velde the Elder Leiden 1611 - 1693 London
Description
- Willem van de Velde the Elder
- An English Two-Decker: The Restoration
inscribed in graphite lower left, partly obscured by adjoining sheet: restoratijon [restoration]
and numbered in a later hand upper right: 4
- graphite, brush and gray wash on a large sheet with two narrow strips of paper added left and right
Catalogue Note
The Restoration was built in 1678 and carried 70 guns. There is another drawing of her in Rotterdam of c. 1685 (MB 1866/T 408, Robinson and Weber, vol. I, p. 118 and vol. III, p. 247), also inscribed with her name, in which Van de Velde shows the ship more in broadside, her decks filled with men. The presence of the small balcony or semi-circular gallery on the hastily drawn stern confirms that this is the same vessel.
The present drawing, which is shown from the starboard quarter view, is much more typical of Van de Velde's 'ship portraits'. Since many were made as documentary works, to be used later in his large grisailles and battle paintings, he usually concentrated on the tafferel (the space on the upper part of the stern for the coat of arms) where many of the ship's most distinctive features were to be found. Having drawn it from this viewpoint, Van de Velde would have captured the necessary information to depict the ship accurately in various positions in one of his highly complex, painted compositions.