Attributed to Willem van de Velde the Younger Leiden 1633 - 1707 London

With W.E. Duits, London and Amsterdam by 1922;
Possibly with Louis Morant, Cork Street, London by 1923;
With Clifford Duits, London by 1950;
Mrs Eva Sardinia Borthwick Norton (died 1988) of Southwick House, Purbrook, Hampshire by 1952;
By whom offered London, Christie's, 15 May 1953;
Bequeathed by her executors to The Royal Scottish Academy, 1990.

Advertisement in The Burlington Magazine, August 1923, p. x, September 1923, October 1923;
D. Phillips-Brit, The History of Yachting, 1974, p. 8;
M.S. Robinson, Van der Velde : a catalogue of the paintings of the elder and the younger Willem van de Velde,  Greenwich 1990, vol. II, pp. 777-9, no. 433, reproduced p. 777.

The scene may show the departure of the Royal Mary Yacht from Amsterdam in August 1660.  The Mary was the yacht given by the City of Amsterdam to Charles II after he expressed his admiration for it when he had sailed in it to Rotterdam on his way to The Hague and Scheveningen at his restoration to the throne of England in May 1660. 

Robinson, who knew the painting from good photographs (see Literature), was of the opinion that it could either be by Adriaen or the young Willem the Younger.  We are however grateful to Dr. Bart Cornelis who, in private correspondance, has pointed out that this work was not executed by Adriaen van de Velde, there being no useful comparison extant in his oeuvre.

In the Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam, there is a pencil and wash drawing by Willem of the same barge, port quarter view, that is shown on the left starboard quarter view.